Chapter 2The Traitors Under My Roof

I didn't stay in that house a minute longer.

I grabbed my suitcase and walked out the door. Greg yelled my name—"Harper!"—down the hall, but I didn't stop.

As the elevator doors slid shut, I heard the baby start to wail again.

I booked a room at a cheap motel right across the street from our subdivision.

I sat on the edge of the stiff mattress. My suitcase was still zipped shut.

Inside that suitcase was a navy blue windbreaker. Greg's size. I had seen it on sale at an outlet mall near the project site in Phoenix and bought it for him.

There was a bag of artisanal dark roast coffee beans. He had mentioned wanting to try them.

There was a pair of new house slippers. He told me before I left that his old ones were wearing thin.

I unzipped the luggage and pulled out the slippers.

He already had new slippers at home. Pink ones.

I shoved them back into the suitcase.

Zipped it shut.

My phone was vibrating violently against the nightstand. Call after call from Greg. I flipped the ringer switch to silent. The screen just kept flashing in the dark room. Lighting up, going black. Lighting up, going black.

The text messages flooded in.

Harper please don't do anything crazy, let's just talk.

Tell me where you are, I’m worried about you being out there alone.

It's not what you think.

Not what I think.

What the hell was it, then?

I opened my Instagram app and scrolled back. Three months ago.

March 14th. The day before my flight. He had posted a picture of a sad-looking frozen pizza on a plate. The caption: Wife is out of town for three months. Guess I'm fending for myself starting today. Followed by a laughing-crying emoji.

I looked at the comments.

His coworker wrote: You're gonna waste away without Harper cooking for you man lol.

Greg replied: I know right, unsupervised bachelor life is rough.

March 14th.

I flew out the very next morning.

Two weeks later, that woman moved into my home.

I kept scrolling. Further back.

February. Valentine’s Day. He had posted a selfie of us at a nice Italian place. The caption: Year four. Still going strong.

I remembered that night clearly. After he paid the bill, he held my hand across the table and said, "Next year, let's look at upgrading to a bigger house."

I had laughed at him. Told him we were still paying off the mortgage on this one, that we didn't need fancy dinners, that we should just make pasta at home next time.

He had wrapped his arm around my shoulders in the parking lot and kissed my temple. "You work so hard for us, honey. I appreciate you."

I appreciate you.

On February 14th, he appreciated me.

On March 15th, I left.

By April 1st, another woman was sleeping in my bed.

I tossed the phone onto the mattress.

The motel blanket was painfully thin. The AC unit in the window rattled and hummed.

I had flown three hours from Phoenix. Landed, took the train back to the suburbs, forty minutes.

I had been on that construction site for three months. Eighty-seven days. Working twelve-plus hours a day in the blistering Arizona sun. The UV index was so high my face had peeled twice.

We delivered the project ahead of schedule. The client gave us a massive bonus, and my cut was $20,000.

I had been riding that high all day. Because I thought—I honestly thought—I could use that money to take a massive chunk out of our mortgage principal.

The mortgage.

I opened my banking app.

This month’s payment had already cleared. $2,400. Deducted automatically from my checking account. Just like the previous thirty-five months.

Autopay. I had set it up myself.

From the very first installment, every single cent of that mortgage came out of my account.

Had Greg ever transferred money into it?

I pulled up my deposit history.

No.

Thirty-six months. $2,400 a month.

I paid every dime of it alone.

Outside the motel window, the neon sign flickered over the wet asphalt. It was 11:00 PM, and cars were still speeding by.

I dialed my best friend, Sarah.

"Hey," she answered. "What's wrong? You sound weird."

"I'm back."

"Wait, didn't you say your flight was tomorrow?"

"I came back a day early."

I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"When I opened my front door, there was a woman living in my house. Holding a baby."

Dead silence on the line. It lasted for a full three seconds.

"I'm on my way. Drop your location."

When Sarah arrived, she was carrying a plastic grocery bag with some oranges and a bottle of water.

She didn't demand details. She just sat on the edge of the bed, peeled an orange, and handed it to me.

I held it in my palm. Didn't eat it.

"She was wearing an old sleep shirt," I said to the empty room.

"Yeah."

"It wasn't new. It had been washed a hundred times."

"Yeah."

"There was a baby food schedule on my fridge."

"Yeah."

"My clothes... they shoved my clothes into the bottom drawer."

Sarah didn't say anything to that.

She gently took the orange out of my frozen hand, broke off a wedge, and pressed it to my lips.

"Eat something first."

I chewed the orange.

It was incredibly sour.

My phone screen lit up again.

This time, it wasn't Greg.

It was my mother-in-law, Barbara.

Harper, Greg just called me. Please don't overreact. Come home tomorrow and we can all sit down and talk this through like adults.

Talk this through.

I flipped the phone over, screen down.

Sarah watched me.

"What are you going to do tomorrow?"

I stared up at the water-stained ceiling.

"I'm thinking about something."

"What?"

"He practically forced me to take that project in Phoenix."

Sarah frowned. "What do you mean?"

"When the firm asked who wanted to go in early March, no one volunteered. Three months on-site. Brutal heat. Awful hours."

"And?"

"Greg was the one who pushed me. He told me, 'You should take it. A massive commercial build like that will guarantee your promotion to Senior PM. Three months will fly by. I've got things covered at home.'"

I paused, letting the memory settle over me like ash.

"I've got things covered at home."

I repeated the words slowly.

Sarah reached out and squeezed my hand hard.

"Go to sleep. We'll deal with this tomorrow."

She turned off the lamp.

I lay on the motel bed, eyes wide open in the dark.

All I could see in my mind were those pink fuzzy slippers.

The worn-down soles.

They weren't new.

She hadn't just arrived.

She had been living my life for a very, very long time.