Chapter 2 - The Roses Came Too Late
Daniel Mercer stood in the middle of his Boston penthouse holding twelve red roses and a legal document that seemed to have erased every sound from the room.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the words.
PETITION FOR SEPARATION.
His eyes moved lower.
Emma Mercer.
Her signature.
Three days earlier.
Behind him, his mother, Margaret, covered her mouth with both hands.
“Oh, Daniel.”
He barely heard her.
The apartment looked wrong.
Not messy.
Not abandoned.
Emptied.
The cream bassinet that had stood beside the bedroom window was gone. The tiny stack of newborn blankets was gone. Emma’s framed photographs were gone. Even the ridiculous ceramic rabbit she had bought for the nursery after arguing for twenty minutes that their daughter needed “something impractical and adorable” had disappeared.
Cardboard boxes sat near the doorway, containing what Emma had apparently decided belonged exclusively to him.
Daniel’s throat tightened.
“Where is she?”
Margaret stared at him.
“You’re asking me?”
He turned sharply.
“Mom.”
“She called me four days ago.”
Daniel froze.
“What?”
“She asked whether I knew a safe place she could stay where she wouldn’t be disturbed.”
“You knew?”
Margaret’s expression changed.
The grief disappeared.
Anger replaced it.
“Yes.”
“You knew my wife was planning to leave me?”
“Your wife had just undergone emergency surgery while you were comforting another woman.”
Daniel’s jaw hardened.
“That isn’t what happened.”
Margaret laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“You still believe explanations matter?”
Daniel dropped the flowers onto the marble coffee table.
Rose petals scattered across the surface.
“Where is Emma?”
“I’m not telling you.”
“She’s my wife.”
“And Lily is your daughter.”
Hearing his daughter’s name made something twist inside him.
He had seen Lily only three times since she left the neonatal unit.
Three times.
He suddenly hated the number.
Margaret stepped closer.
“Do you know what Emma asked me when she called?”
Daniel said nothing.
“She asked whether you had ever loved her.”
His face changed.
Margaret saw it.
“Do you know what I told her?”
“Mom—”
“I told her I believed you did.”
Daniel swallowed.
“And then she cried.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“She didn’t cry because she believed me. She cried because she realized love wasn’t enough.”
Daniel looked away.
His phone vibrated.
Olivia.
Again.
He stared at the name.
Margaret followed his gaze.
Something cold entered her expression.
“You should answer.”
Daniel declined the call.
Margaret shook her head.
“Fifteen days late.”
“She was in trouble.”
“So was your wife.”
“You don’t understand what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
Daniel’s silence lasted too long.
Margaret’s face fell.
“That’s what I thought.”
She picked up her purse.
At the door, she stopped.
“If you want Emma back, Daniel, don’t chase her.”
He looked up.
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“For the first time in your life?”
Margaret opened the door.
“Tell the truth.”
Emma was forty miles away in a small furnished apartment overlooking the harbor in Marblehead.
Lily slept against her chest.
The baby had finally gained enough weight for the pediatrician to stop worrying, though Emma still woke every two hours to make sure she was breathing.
Trauma did strange things.
Sometimes Emma could sit quietly for an entire afternoon.
Sometimes the sound of a phone ringing made her heart race.
Rachel Foster sat across from her with a laptop open.
Rachel was thirty-eight, divorced, terrifyingly efficient, and had the calm expression of someone who had watched hundreds of marriages collapse and no longer confused promises with evidence.
“Daniel received the petition twenty minutes ago,” Rachel said.
Emma’s hand stopped moving across Lily’s back.
“Already?”
“The courier confirmed delivery.”
Emma stared toward the water.
She had imagined this moment repeatedly.
She expected satisfaction.
Instead she felt tired.
Rachel closed the laptop.
“He’ll contact you.”
“I know.”
“Don’t respond emotionally.”
Emma smiled faintly.
“Rachel, I barely have enough energy to respond biologically.”
That earned the smallest laugh.
Then Emma’s phone buzzed.
Daniel.
Her stomach tightened.
She let it ring.
A voicemail appeared.
Then another call.
Then another.
Rachel held out her hand.
Emma gave her the phone.
Rachel silenced it.
“You don’t owe him immediate access to you.”
“He’ll want to see Lily.”
“He has that right, assuming there are no safety concerns. But visits can be arranged properly.”
Emma nodded.
She looked at her daughter.
Lily’s tiny fingers curled against the fabric of Emma’s sweater.
“I don’t want to punish him.”
Rachel studied her.
“That distinction matters.”
“I mean it. Whatever happened between us, Lily deserves a father.”
“And you deserve boundaries.”
Emma looked down.
“I just don’t know how someone can miss the most important night of your life and then behave like fifteen days is nothing.”
Rachel’s expression softened.
“Some people don’t understand consequences until consequences stop waiting politely.”
Emma almost smiled.
Her phone lit up again.
This time it wasn’t Daniel.
It was an unknown number.
A message appeared.
You should ask your husband what really happened at the Back Bay condo.
Emma’s blood went cold.
Another message followed.
Olivia wasn’t alone when Daniel arrived.
Rachel saw Emma’s face.
“What?”
Emma handed her the phone.
Rachel read the messages twice.
“Do you recognize the number?”
“No.”
A third message arrived.
A photograph.
Emma stared.
Daniel stood inside the lobby of his Back Bay building on the night Lily was born.
The timestamp read 11:42 p.m.
Olivia stood beside him.
But they weren’t alone.
A man in a gray coat was standing near the elevator.
And Daniel was gripping him by the collar.
Emma enlarged the image.
Rachel leaned closer.
“Who is that?”
“I don’t know.”
The next message answered.
His name is Ethan Hayes. Olivia’s brother.
Then another.
And Olivia did not come back from London because she was lonely.
Emma’s heart began pounding.
Rachel immediately started saving screenshots.
Emma stared at Daniel’s frozen face in the photograph.
He looked furious.
Not romantic.
Not distracted.
Terrified.
A final message appeared.
Daniel lied to you. But maybe not about what you think.
Emma sat completely still.
Lily stirred against her chest.
For fifteen days Emma had believed she knew why her marriage ended.
Now, for the first time, she wondered whether she had only discovered the easiest part of the truth.
And somewhere back in Boston, Daniel Mercer was staring at the same anonymous photograph on his own phone.
May you like
Except his message contained only six words.
Tell Emma everything—or I will.
