Chapter 1

Annie's POV

"Can you and Daddy get divorced?"

My five-year-old son's question hung in the air of his dimly lit bedroom, stopping my bedtime story mid-sentence. Brian looked up at me, fighting to keep his eyes open.

I carefully set down the story book I was reading to him. "Why would you ask that, sweetheart?"

"Because you never let me have any fun," he mumbled sleepily, words slurring slightly. "You won't let me have McDonald's or pizza for lunch like Max does. Sarah says it's okay to have treats sometimes, but you always make me eat those special foods..."

My heart clenched. Brian's food allergies and digestive issues had been a constant battle since he was a toddler. The endless doctor visits, the strict dietary restrictions, the nights spent worrying when he accidentally ate something he shouldn't have—all of it flashed through my mind. "Honey, why would you think—" But he had already drifted off to sleep, his small body curled around his stuffed dinosaur.

Sometimes I wondered if my strict attention to his diet was pushing him away. The truth was clear as the memories flooded into my mind—his sudden reluctance to hug me after school, the way he'd stopped sharing his daily adventures at dinner, how he always seemed distracted when I read him stories. I had been too careless before, or too busy trying to balance the roles of mother and wife, leaving no room for myself. But what choice did I have when he was a delicate boy?

"Sarah says..." My son's words echoed in my ears. Sarah was his teacher's assistant, a woman I had trusted. Why was she discussing divorce and diet with my five-year-old?

I walked out of Brian's room, my mind racing. The house was silent, but the air felt heavy. I headed toward Philip's study. I needed to talk to my husband, to find some grounding in the midst of this unsettling feeling.

When I pushed the door open, the scent of expensive bourbon and old books met me. Philip was sitting behind his desk, the glow of his laptop illuminating the sharp angles of his face. He didn't look up.

"Philip, we need to talk about Brian," I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

"Not now, Annie," he said, his voice cold and dismissive. He finally looked at me, but his eyes were empty of the warmth that used to be there.

He stood up, slowly circling the desk until he was standing directly in front of me. The air between us was thick with a tension I couldn't escape. He stepped into my personal space, his presence looming and cold, effectively blocking my path to the door.

"Philip, please," I whispered, my heart hammering against my ribs. I tried to maintain my composure, but his gaze was like a wall of solid ice.

He didn't listen to my concerns. Instead, he stood there with a calculated stillness, a deliberate display of psychological dominance that felt more like a cage than a conversation. He leaned slightly closer, his face inches from mine, effectively silencing my protests with his sheer intensity. It wasn't an act of love; it was an assertion of emotional ownership, a cold attempt to exert control over the crumbling fragments of our marriage.

I felt a surge of conflicting emotions—the sting of his recent coldness, the suspicion gnawing at my gut, and a chilling realization that the man standing before me had become a stranger. He maintained this suffocating proximity, his silence more commanding than any shout, as if he could stifle my questions through sheer intimidation.

"Is this how you fix things?" I managed to gasp out, my hands trembling.

He didn't answer with words. Instead, he maintained that overwhelming, distant stare, his actions speaking of a man who didn't know how to bridge the emotional distance he had created, opting instead for a silent, mechanical control. In that moment, surrounded by the shadows of the study, I realized that the intimacy we once shared had been replaced by a hollow, performative imitation of a marriage.

When he finally stepped aside, leaving me feeling hollow and shaken, he simply said, "Go to bed, Annie."

I stood there in the silence, watching him turn back to his desk as if nothing had happened. My son wanted a divorce, and my husband was a ghost in my own home. I realized then that my life was a house of cards, and the wind was just starting to blow.