Chapter 2

The next morning, I woke up on the couch in the living room. I hadn' t been able to sleep in our bed, in the room I shared with a monster. Sarah came downstairs, dressed in a chic jogging outfit, looking fresh and rested.

She poured herself a coffee and looked over at me with a sigh of feigned patience. "David, we need to talk. I know you' re upset. I was harsh yesterday. I was grieving, and I lashed out. I' m sorry."

The words were right, but her eyes were cold and empty. There was no remorse, only calculation. She was playing a part, trying to manage the situation, to smooth things over so she could get back to her life with Mark. The apology was just another lie in a mountain of them.

I didn' t respond. I just stared at her.

"I was thinking," I said, my voice flat and dead, "I' d like to go through Lily' s things today. Pack them up."

A flicker of annoyance crossed her face before she replaced it with a sad smile. "Oh, honey. You don' t have to put yourself through that. I already took care of it."

I felt a jolt, as if I' d touched a live wire. "What do you mean, you took care of it?"

"I had a service come yesterday while you were at the… at the funeral," she said, stumbling over the word. "They cleared out her room. It was too painful to have all her things just sitting there, a constant reminder."

I stood up slowly and walked past her, up the stairs. I pushed open the door to Lily' s room.

It was gone. Everything. The pink wallpaper was still there, but the bed, the dresser, the bookshelf filled with her favorite stories, the toy box overflowing with stuffed animals-it was all gone. The room was sterile, empty, as if Lily had never existed. She hadn' t just killed our daughter; she was trying to erase her, to scrub every trace of her from this house, from our lives.

My knees felt weak. I leaned against the doorframe for support. She had done this on the day of Lily' s funeral. While I was burying our child, she was having her memory professionally sanitized.

I walked back downstairs. Sarah was sipping her coffee, scrolling through her phone.

"Was she in pain?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper. "When it happened. In Switzerland."

She looked up, her expression impatient. "I told you, it was peaceful. The doctor said it was the most humane option. She just drifted off."

"But was she scared?" I pressed, needing to know, needing to hear her admit to the horror of it.

"David, stop this," she said sharply. "You' re torturing yourself. She was a child. She probably didn' t even understand what was happening. She was just tired."

I remembered the last video call we had. I was in the lab, working frantically. She was in the Swiss "clinic" with Sarah. She looked so small and frail in the big white bed, but her eyes were bright.

"Daddy," she' d said, her voice thin but clear. "Mommy says the doctors here will make me all better. Then we can go to our secret house and build the biggest Lego castle ever, right?"

"That' s right, sweetheart," I' d said, my own voice thick with tears I tried to hide. "The biggest castle in the world."

"She wasn' t tired," I said to Sarah, the words like stones in my mouth. "She thought you were saving her. She was hopeful."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "She was delirious from the medication. It' s over, David. We need to move on."

Move on. The words echoed in the hollow space where my heart used to be. There was no moving on from this.

That afternoon, while Sarah was out for a "grief counseling" session that I knew was a rendezvous with Mark, I went to the storage unit where the disposal service had taken Lily' s belongings. I paid the bill and they pointed me to a large wooden crate.

I pried it open. Inside, her entire life was packed in boxes. Her little dresses, her worn teddy bear, her half-finished coloring books. The scent of her-that faint, sweet smell of baby soap and innocence-clung to everything. I carefully loaded every box into my car. I didn' t take them back to the mansion.

Instead, I drove to the other side of town, to the small, rundown apartment building where I' d lived before I met Sarah. I still kept the lease on my old one-bedroom unit. I' d told Sarah it was a sentimental holdover, but the truth was it was my escape. It was Lily' s and my secret sanctuary.

I spent the rest of the day unpacking. I set up her little bed in the corner of the living room, just as she liked it. I placed her teddy bear on the pillow. I arranged her books on the windowsill and taped her crayon drawings to the walls.

The small apartment, once a symbol of my past, now became a shrine. It was the only place left in the world where Lily still existed. Here, surrounded by her things, I could breathe. I could feel her presence, her love. It was a space filled with warmth and memories, a stark contrast to the cold, empty mansion I was forced to call home.

I stayed until late, just sitting in the quiet, looking at the life Sarah had tried to throw away. When I finally drove back to the mansion, I was filled with a cold, hard resolve.

As I pulled into the driveway, I saw Sarah' s car. But there was another car parked behind it, a sleek, black sports car I didn' t recognize. I walked in the front door and immediately saw them in the entryway. A pair of expensive, handmade Italian leather shoes. Men' s shoes. Size 11. Definitely not mine.

A cold knot of dread tightened in my stomach. I walked into the living room.

Sarah was there, pouring two glasses of wine. Standing by the fireplace, his back to me, was a tall, handsome man in a tailored suit. He turned as I entered, a smug, self-satisfied smile on his face.

It was Mark.

"David, you' re back," Sarah said, her voice bright and completely devoid of any sadness. "I want you to meet someone. This is Mark Johnson. An old friend. Mark was so sorry he couldn' t make it to the funeral. He was closing a very important business deal out of the country."

She looked at me, her eyes daring me to challenge her, to cause a scene. The sheer audacity of it, bringing her lover into our home, into the house our daughter had just been erased from, was breathtaking.

The man who was the reason my daughter was dead was standing in my living room, and my wife was introducing him as an old friend.