After that, the invites started coming. Small things. Coffee at the local shop. A lunch in the park near their place. I told myself it was fine. I told myself that getting close to her was the only way to keep tabs on him.

I was a fool. I told myself I wanted to see who she was so I could understand what I was up against. But the truth is, I wanted to be the person she leaned on. It felt like a sick kind of leverage. I would sit across from her and listen to her talk about the nursery paint colors, and all I could think about was the way David had kissed me in the elevator three days before.

The baby shower was the peak of the madness. Her sister’s backyard was filled with pink and yellow balloons. It felt suffocating. Everyone was talking about the future, about diapers and sleepless nights, and I was standing there in a sundress, feeling like an undercover agent in enemy territory. Then, Carol walked over. She looked tired but so happy. She took my hand and placed it right over her stomach. “He’s kicking,” she whispered.

I felt it. A sharp, rhythmic tap against my palm. It was the most human thing I had ever felt in my life, and for a second, I actually stopped breathing. I looked up and saw David standing by the cooler. He was holding a beer, staring at the fence like he was waiting for the clock to run out. I didn’t look at his eyes. I looked at his hands. They were clenched around the bottle. He knew I was touching her. He knew the weight of his secret was sitting right there between us. He didn’t move. He didn’t come over. He just kept looking at the fence.

I pulled my hand back after a few seconds. “He’s so strong,” I said. Carol beamed at me. “He’s going to be just like his father,” she said. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her that if he were like his father, he would be a master of deceit who kept his life split into little compartments he could tuck away whenever he felt like it. But I just smiled. I think I even managed a laugh.

The credit card statement arrived a week later. It wasn’t addressed to David. It was a secondary card on an account that I have access to because of a project we were working on together. I don’t need to explain how or why, just know that I saw it. I saw the dates. October 14th to the 16th. Then again on November 2nd. The Marriott by the airport. I remember those dates perfectly because David had told me he was at a regional conference in Ohio on those days. He had sent me pictures of the hotel room, pictures of the lobby, pictures of his dinner plate.