I thought the silence after our vows was the quiet of contentment.
I was wrong. It was the sound of waiting for the phone to ring.
The sound of him choosing her. Again.
It started with the late nights. The emergencies only his hands could solve. Then the easy way he said her name. Evadne.
She was the new nurse in his surgical unit. The one his mother had all but handpicked for him. The one who understood the grueling hours, the sacred pressure. The one who fit so perfectly into the world he’d built without me.
He never saw the text she sent me. A photo of them, heads bent over a chart, his hand on her arm. Just colleagues, he said. You’re imagining things, he said. His mother said I was being hysterical. That a surgeon’s wife needed to be stronger. That Evadne was just a friend, a support system he needed.
The night I went into the hospital with appendicitis, he was in the OR. With her. His phone was off. When he finally appeared at my bedside, his scrubs were clean, his face was calm. He’d just saved a life. How could I be angry?
But I saw the way Evadne stood just behind him in the hallway. How her eyes met his before they met mine. She was the one he called home. Not me.
When does loyalty become a lie? When does standing by your husband mean betraying yourself?
Is there any coming back from being the second choice in your own marriage?
There is no cheating in this book.
