Chapter 1

The second year I lay paralyzed in bed, my husband Nathan Foster treated me exactly the same as always.

That day, as usual, he played me a video of our daughter making mud pies in our backyard garden. I stroked the screen where Gigi was, brushing across the air, and said offhandedly, "Gigi looks like she hasn't grown at all in almost half a year."

Nathan stiffened for a second, then smiled and soothed me. "Half a year on the medication slows a child down a little. She'll catch up once she's stronger."

I never once doubted him. I only blamed myself for not protecting her after the crash.

Then, one day, the new caregiver, Ella James, let something slip. "Mrs. Foster, you have to take your medicine on time. Get your body strong and have another baby, otherwise your late daughter won't rest easy in heaven."

The bowl of medicine slipped straight out of my hand. "What do you mean, my late daughter? What happened to my daughter?"

Under my questioning, I finally learned the truth. After the accident, while I lay unconscious, Nathan didn't rush to our daughter first. He went to comfort his first love, who was shaken.

Gigi had been left in the passenger seat of a car in the parking lot, and in the brutal summer heat, she suffocated to death.

And the rehab for my legs, two years with no progress at all, had never been an accident either.

That daily shot of "nutritional serum" was poison, injected with his own nod of approval.

The most laughable part of all: everyone knew. And still they put on this show at my bedside for two whole years.

I dug my nails into my palm until it nearly bled, and I smiled a little at Nathan's back.

The rest of my life is long. I'm done playing along.

1.

Nathan came in carrying the bowl of medicine and bent down with the same easy intimacy as always to feel my forehead.

"How are you feeling today?"

I didn't pull away, and I didn't lean in. Today, for the first time in two years, I didn't smile at him.

Instead I said, against everything he was used to, "Nathan, when can I see Gigi? It's been two years. I miss her so much."

The hand stirring the spoon paused, then quickly went back to normal.

"Isn't she scared of you after she sees you? Have you forgotten? Every time she came back from the hospital, she'd cry at night calling for her mommy. Mom and Dad said she's too little, that coming to the hospital gives her nightmares."

Nathan stroked my hair, gentle as water. "When she's a little older, when you're a little better, I'll bring her to see you, all right?"

His expression was seamless, as if there really were a little girl at home waiting for me.

Then he swiped open the photo album. "I never forgot the videos I promised to record for you every week. If you really miss her, just watch them more."

"Gigi says she misses her mommy too."

On the screen, Gigi sat on the swing in the yard, a pinwheel clutched in her hand. Off camera, Nathan called out to her, "Gigi, look at Mommy!"

My daughter turned her head and smiled at the lens.

I'd never paid attention to the little details in these recordings before. Like a daughter whose face hadn't changed in half a year. Like flowers that never wilted through any season...

Every last piece of it was eerily wrong.

I was just about to lean in for a closer look when Nathan flipped the screen face down and brought the cup of medicine to my lips.

"Sweetie, once you can really stand again, we'll go to the beach, all three of us. You can teach her to swim. Remember you used to be on the swim team? With you teaching her hand over hand, she'll be amazing."

I swallowed the medicine, and the bitterness spread down my throat.

If Ella hadn't let it slip, I might really have believed the beautiful picture he painted.

A pity that all of it was fake.

Then Nathan tucked in the corner of my blanket and pressed a very light kiss to me, waited until my breathing steadied, and his footsteps rose, then slowly faded away.

I opened my eyes.

Ella heard the movement and came in, wheeling me out.

Roberta Pruitt's office was on this same floor.

I had always known Roberta was Nathan's first love. We chose this hospital in the first place because Roberta was the head of the pharmacy department.

You could say she had full charge of my illness.

The office window faced the back garden of the inpatient wing. Ella parked me in a corner, just where I could make out the blurred figures moving inside.

Roberta half-leaned against her desk, one leg swinging lightly. Across from her stood Nathan, and now she was reaching out, impatient, to undo his shirt buttons.

I gripped the armrests of the wheelchair, and picturing what was about to happen, my stomach turned.

"She wants to see Gigi again today."

Roberta looped her arms around his neck, not caring in the least. "What do you care? Once she can't get up at all anymore, the whole thing with your daughter is closed. Making a fuss won't do her any good. She's a cripple. What's she going to do, turn the world upside down?"

Nathan's hand settled on her waist, and the wet sound of their kissing started up.

"If it really comes to it, double today's dose? When her body hurts, she won't have the head to think about all that."

He looked at the syringe Roberta held out to him, and the kissing clearly stalled.

My heart lifted right along with him.

The next second, he nodded without a moment's hesitation. "Fine. Whatever you say."

My fingertips dug hard into my palm, and I couldn't stop the tears.

It wasn't only the betrayal of the man who slept beside me. It was that the ugliness in a human heart had rewritten everything I thought I knew.

I still remembered the first time I met Nathan, how warm and kind he was.

On a strange street in London, my bag was snatched, and while I stood there helpless, it was Nathan who charged out of the crowd. Two minutes later he came back dragging the thief by the collar to apologize to me.

I bought him dinner, and one thing led to another until we were friends.

Later we both got into grad programs and agreed to come home together. On graduation day it snowed in thick heavy flakes, and he came running through snow half as tall as a person, one step at a time, to the foot of my apartment building.

"Sabrina Quinn, I'll cherish you and love you my whole life. Be with me, all right?"

Our love ran slow and steady, and it carried us all the way to the altar, all the way to the birth of our daughter.

Until that day, when the three of us were driving back from the beach. Halfway home, Nathan took a phone call, didn't notice the oncoming car, and caused a devastating crash.