“Don’t call her that.”
He ran his hands through his hair.
“It’s not… it wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t it? You signed a lease with her, picked out furniture, planned a life together. What would you call it?”
He had no answer for that.
“I need to come in,” he said. “Get more of my things.”
“Fine. You have ten minutes.”
I stepped aside. He moved through the apartment like a ghost, gathering clothes, toiletries, his laptop. I watched him from the doorway, sipping my coffee, feeling nothing.
“I’m going to fix this,”
he said as he was leaving.
“I’m going to figure out what happened with Hazel, and then I’m going to fix things with you. With us.”
“There is no us anymore, Milo.”
I started closing the door.
“The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”
What Milo didn’t know, what I hadn’t told him, was that I knew exactly where Hazel had gone, and I knew exactly why. On day nine of Milo’s trip, while I was deep into my investigation, I discovered something about Hazel that changed everything. Her social media profiles were set to private, but her husband’s weren’t. Marcus Whitaker, high school English teacher. His Instagram was public, filled with family photos. Hazel, Marcus, two little girls, maybe seven and nine years old, at the beach, at birthday parties, on camping trips. The most recent photo from three weeks ago showed them at a pumpkin patch. The caption read, “Fall family time. So grateful for these three.” Hazel had a family. A husband. Children. Two little girls who called her mommy and had no idea their mother was planning to leave them for my husband. I’d stared at those photos for an hour feeling sick. Those children, those innocent children who were about to have their lives destroyed. I’d agonized over what to do for a full day. It wasn’t my place to blow up Hazel’s life. Wasn’t my responsibility to tell her husband what she’d done. But then I’d thought about Marcus, about how he was being lied to just like I was, about how he deserved to know the truth before Hazel could spin her own version of events. I’d created an anonymous email account, attached every piece of evidence I had, the Instagram photos, the hotel receipts, the text messages between Hazel and Milo planning their future together. I’d titled the email simply, “I’m sorry you have to find out this way,” and I’d sent it to Marcus’s school email address, which was listed on the high school’s website.
Three days after Milo came home, my phone rang from an unknown number.
“Is this Isla Brennan?”
The voice was male, hoarse like he’d been crying.
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“Marcus Whitaker. Hazel’s… Hazel’s husband.”
He paused.
“I think we need to talk about our spouses.”
We met at a small coffee shop in Brooklyn the next afternoon. I recognized him immediately from his Instagram photos, though he looked older now, tired. His eyes were kind but sad.
“Thank you for meeting me,” he said as we sat down with our coffees. “I know this must be strange.”
“No stranger than anything else that’s happened this week.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Did you send me that email? The anonymous one?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
“I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t my place, but—”
“Don’t apologize.”
He set his phone on the table between us.
“I needed to know. I deserved to know.”
He looked at me.
“How long have you known about them?”
“Eight days. You?”
“Four.”
He rubbed his face.
“Hazel told me she was going to Florida for a girls’ trip. Old college friends. Said they’d been planning it for months. She sent me photos every day. Beaches, restaurants, telling me she missed me and the girls.”
“Milo told me it was a work trip to Miami. Critical client pitch. Sent me photos of conference rooms.”
