He did not pick up.
I called again.
Voicemail.
My mind filled the silence with images.
Owen and Ivy upstairs.
The locked room.
The perfume.
The black case.
The blue paint I had found beneath Jamie’s fingernails.
For weeks, Owen had claimed the paint came from preschool.
Had my husband been bringing another woman into our home while involving our child in the deception?
By the time we reached the house, I had already imagined divorce lawyers, custody agreements and telling our families.
I left the groceries in the car.
Inside, the house was silent.
The spare bedroom remained locked.
Jamie stood beside me at the top of the stairs.
“Daddy keeps the key in the drawer under his socks.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“He gets it when Miss Ivy comes.”
I entered our bedroom.
The scent was stronger there.
Sweet and floral.
Not perfume, I realized.
Something else.
Paint thinner, perhaps.
I opened Owen’s dresser.
Beneath his socks was a small brass key.
For several seconds, I held it without moving.
Then I crossed the hallway.
The lock clicked.
I opened the spare-room door.
And gasped.
The room had been emptied.
Plastic sheets covered the floor.
Large canvases leaned against the walls.
Photographs, letters and old postcards were spread across a long table.
At the center stood a nearly completed wooden structure shaped like the front of a small house.
I stepped closer.
It was a miniature replica of the cottage where Molly and I had grown up.
Every detail was there.
The blue front door.
The crooked porch railing.
The apple tree beside the kitchen window.
One wall had been left open, revealing miniature rooms inside.
The kitchen where Molly taught me to bake.
The upstairs room we shared as children.
Our mother’s yellow chair beside the fireplace.
My legs weakened.
Then I noticed the black case.
It lay open near the window.
Inside were carving tools, tiny brushes and containers of paint.
Not evidence of an affair.
The tools of an artist.
On the table sat a notebook.
The first page read:
For Rachel, so she can return home whenever she misses the people who are no longer there.
My eyes filled.
There were pages of notes in Owen’s handwriting.
Measurements taken from old photographs.
Descriptions of furniture.
Stories Jamie remembered me telling about the cottage.
Owen had even contacted Molly’s husband to borrow family photographs without telling me.
I covered my mouth.
“Oh, God.”
Behind me, Jamie whispered:
“Do you like it?”
I turned.
He was standing in the doorway.
“You helped make this?”
He nodded proudly.
“I painted the stars in your room.”
Inside the miniature bedroom, silver stars covered the ceiling.
Molly and I had once painted them there as teenagers.
I had forgotten.
Jamie had not.
Because I had told him the story during bedtime months earlier.
