Chapter 1: 5:12 A.M.
The text came in at 5:12 a.m., while I had both hands in forty pounds of brioche dough.
I own a small bakery on J Street in Sacramento. I open at six-thirty, which means I start at four, which means my phone is usually propped against the flour bin playing podcasts, and nobody texts me before seven except my husband when he’s on a layover in another time zone.
It wasn’t my husband. It was a number with a 720 area code. Denver.
Hi Lauren. You don’t know me. My name is Maya. I’ve been dating your husband for seven months. I didn’t know he was married until yesterday. I’m so sorry.
I read it with dough on my fingers. I read it again. I wiped my hands on my apron, which never works, and picked up the phone like it might burn me.
Before I could decide whether this was a scam, or a prank, or the kind of thing that happens to other women, the photos came in.
The first one was a selfie at Red Rocks, the outdoor amphitheater outside Denver. A pretty woman with long dark curls and a little silver nose ring, laughing, her cheek pressed against a man’s cheek. The man was my husband. Ethan. Blond hair, blue eyes, the navy quarter-zip I bought him for his fortieth birthday.
The second was a screenshot. A Sacramento County marriage record. Ethan James Shaw and Lauren Marie Keller. Date of marriage: June 14. Nine years ago this June.
The third was just a photo of a man asleep on a couch I didn’t recognize, with a golden retriever on his chest.
My husband is allergic to dogs. Or he told me he was. For nine years, every time our son Caleb asked for a puppy, Ethan said, “Buddy, I’d love to, but Daddy can’t breathe around them.”
He looked like he was breathing just fine.
My phone buzzed again while I was still holding it, and for one stupid second I thought it was Maya saying just kidding.
It was Ethan.
Landed in Denver. Love you. Kiss Caleb for me. ❤️
The same minute. The same city. Two texts on my screen, one on top of the other, like a magic trick where the woman in the box finally sees how it’s done.
I sat down on an upturned milk crate next to the walk-in fridge. The ovens ticked as they heated. The radio in the corner was playing some song from 2003. Out front, through the little window in the swinging door, the street was still dark and wet from the sprinklers.
I knew the facts of my life. I’d known them at 5:11. My husband is a commercial pilot. He flies out of Sacramento four or five days a week, with overnights in Denver, Seattle and Phoenix. He calls every night at nine so Caleb can tell him about his day. He leaves Post-it notes on the coffee maker that say Morning, beautiful.
None of that was any less true at 5:13. It just meant something else now.
I thought about calling him. I could picture exactly how it would go. The warm laugh. Babe, what? That’s insane. Some crazy woman, the internet is full of them. Block her. And I would want to believe him so badly that I probably would.
So I didn’t call him.
I typed back to the Denver number instead. My thumbs were shaking, which made it take three tries.
How do I know this is real?
The dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Then my phone started to ring.
The 720 number. Denver. Calling me.
The brioche was over-proofing on the steel table. The first batch of croissants needed to go in at 5:30. My son would wake up in forty minutes and want his waffle cut into strips, not squares.
I watched the phone ring three times in my flour-covered hand.
On the fourth ring, I answered.
