My mouth went dry and I couldn’t make myself move. I sat in that car for forty minutes. I’m not proud of it. A grown woman hiding behind a steering wheel watching a kid throw a ball.

But I couldn’t drive away and I couldn’t go knock. I just sat there until the girl went inside.

That night, after Marcus fell asleep, I got on the county website and pulled the property records for 14 Ridgewood Lane. Purchased February 2020. And there were two names on the deed. His. And hers. Gina Reyes.

I didn’t sleep. I lay there next to him listening to him breathe and I kept thinking about the coffee. How he’d hand me a mug every morning like he was the most decent man alive. Decent men don’t have a deed they hid for four years.

I wanted to scream at him the second his eyes opened. But I didn’t. I waited. I think part of me wanted to watch his face when he realized he’d been caught, and I wanted to be calm when it happened. So I made it through one more day with my stomach in a knot.

He got home around six. Set his keys on the counter. And I said it real plain. “The vet called about Bruno.”

He went still. Then he set the keys down again, slower this time, like he was buying himself a second. He didn’t look at me. He said, “Which vet?”

Not “who’s Bruno.” Not “what are you talking about.” Which vet. Like the only question that mattered was figuring out how much I knew.

“The one over on Ridgewood,” I said. “Four years, Marcus. Two dogs. And a little girl with your dimple.”

He didn’t yell. He didn’t cry. He walked to the sink and poured himself a glass of water and drank the whole thing while I stood there. When he finally turned around all he said was, “It’s complicated.”

I told him I’d seen the deed. I told him I’d seen her name. And that’s when something in me just had to know the rest, so the next morning, after he left for “work,” I called the number listed on that vet account. The one for Gina.