After three years away, my husband finally came home. That first night, one small habit felt strangely unfamiliar. I had to ask where he learned it.

PART 1

“If you pretend you don’t know anything, you can keep being my wife.”

Ethan said it in the dark, with a chilling calm that froze me far more than any confession ever could.

I had just asked him why, after three years of working away in Chicago, he had returned home with the sudden habit of wrapping his arm tightly around my waist while he slept. He had never done that before.

“Who taught you to sleep like that?” I asked softly.

His arm instantly withdrew from my body. He got up, walked out onto the balcony, and lit a cigarette.

“Mabel, there are things I don’t tell you because you don’t need to know them. Chloe isn’t like other women. If you don’t make a scene, she’ll never bother you.”