Parenthood reshaped me, but it slowly erased Damon. Late nights became weekends away. Excuses stacked like unopened mail: work retreats, fishing trips, guys’ nights. I stayed. For Mark. For what I thought was still holding us together.

Until I walked in on them.

I wasn’t supposed to be home. A burst pipe at the office gave me an early afternoon. I picked up Mark and we returned home with cookie dreams and floury plans. What we found instead was silence… and then a stranger wrapped in our sheets. Damon didn’t flinch. No shame, no explanation—just irritation, like I’d disrupted something that was never mine to see.

I didn’t scream. I didn’t collapse. I took my son and drove to my mother’s. While he slept clutching his