Because the real betrayal belonged to Mark.
He brought another woman into our daughter’s life behind my back.
And afterward, instead of telling the truth immediately, he tried to contain the damage before I discovered it myself.
***
When I got home that night, Mark was sitting at the kitchen table.
He looked older and smaller.
“I can’t carry on with this silence between us. I never stopped loving Ava,” he whispered.
The real betrayal belonged to Mark.
I stared at him for a long moment before answering honestly.
“I think you loved being seen as a good father more than you loved paying attention.”
My husband broke down completely after that.
But I felt strangely calm.
Because for days I’d believed there was some impossible mystery surrounding Ava’s passing.
In reality, it came down to something painfully ordinary.
Lies.
I felt strangely calm.
I didn’t have to say it then, but Mark knew it was over between us.
There was no way I could ever heal from such a betrayal.
Part of me wondered how my husband and Lauren were coping with what they’d done, both the cheating and their involvement in my daughter’s death.
However, they didn’t matter.
What mattered now was that I needed to put myself first.
