Chapter 1The Lie of Mental Illness

Three years after being institutionalized, my psychiatrist husband Chad finally brought me home—only to find Mary and their son living there.

“When are you telling her about the divorce?” Mary asked.

“Not yet. I don’t want to trigger a relapse,” Chad muttered, avoiding my gaze as he hugged her.

Hidden in the hall, I listened until numbness set in. Entering the master bedroom, I found unfamiliar furniture and a huge family portrait above the bed. A bitter laugh escaped me.

From beneath the overturned oak wardrobe came faint whimpers. A tiny, bloodied hand clawed through the gap. I threw my weight against the wardrobe, but it wouldn’t move.

“Chad! Your son’s trapped!” I screamed, grabbing his arm.

Mary shoved me back, eyes blazing. “My son’s safely locked in the playroom! Stay away from him!” She slammed the bedroom door shut, locking it.

Chad sighed, offering two small white pills. “Take these, Harper. They’ll stop the hallucinations.”

Staring at the pills, cold confusion washed over me. Was the blood real? Was I imagining everything?

“I just hope you don’t regret this,” I whispered.

* * *

"Chad! I told you not to bring this psycho back into our house!"

Mary was screaming hysterically, violently smashing vases and picture frames across the living room floor. "Are you trying to drive our entire family insane?!"

My eyes were totally empty as I stood on the second-floor landing, staring down at Chad's exhausted profile.

He lowered his voice, trying to soothe her. "Mary, please stop. Harper has nowhere else to go. This is technically her house too."

Mary let out a shrill, mocking laugh. "This is the home of our family of three!"

"Did you forget how she grabbed a knife and plunged it into her own stomach, butchering her own baby?!"

"Harper is a complete lunatic! If you let her stay, she is going to murder our son one day!"

I froze. My hands curled into tight fists, my fingernails biting so deeply into my palms that they broke the skin.

Baby?

My baby...

A violent surge of adrenaline exploded in my chest. I rushed down the stairs, lunged forward, and slapped Mary entirely across the face. I glared at her, my eyes filled with absolute, murderous rage.

"Ahhhh!!!"

"Harper, you psycho! Are you trying to kill me?!"

Mary clutched her swelling, bright red cheek and scrambled behind Chad, cowering like a terrified animal.

"It was you."

I stared dead into Mary's eyes. "It was you. You were the one who drove that knife into my stomach!"

I whipped my head toward Chad. "You saw it too! Didn't you?!"

The air in the room froze solid.

Both Chad and Mary completely stiffened.

A second later, Mary's face twisted into an ugly, panicked snarl, like a cat whose tail had just been stomped on.

"You hear that?! She isn't cured at all! She is exactly the same crazy b*tch she was three years ago!"

Mary pointed a shaking finger directly at my face. "You are a monster! You butchered your own child, and now you are trying to frame me for it!"

My emotions spiraled entirely out of control. I screamed back at her, my voice raw and tearing. "I didn't! I never hurt my baby!"

That tiny life I had never even gotten to meet. The baby I still dreamed about every single night. Mary had taken a knife and butchered it while I watched.

All the blood drained from Mary's face, but then it flushed crimson with anger. "Chad, look at her! She is having another psychotic break! I told you she wasn't fixed!"

"If you let her stay in this house, I am packing up our son and leaving!"

Chad wrapped his arms tightly around Mary, gently rubbing her back to calm her down.

Then, he turned and looked at me. His brow furrowed deeply, his eyes swirling with a complicated mix of pity and exhaustion. "Harper, you suffered a severe dissociative psychotic episode that day. You were the one who..."

He reached into his pocket, pulled out two fresh pills, and gently patted the top of my head like I was a sick dog. "Just take the medicine. It's all in the past now."

"Don't blame yourself. You were sick. But you definitely can't blame Mary either."

I started to laugh. I laughed so hard that tears spilled over my eyelashes and burned my cheeks.

I looked at the pills in his palm and pushed his hand away. "You literally gave me my medication five minutes ago."

I wasn't crazy. I remembered that day with absolute, terrifying clarity.

Mary, Chad's clinical assistant, had gripped the handle of that knife. She had stroked her own flat stomach, looking down at me with a sickening, triumphant smirk.

"I'm pregnant with Chad's baby."