“Mommy, does the ocean miss me when I’m not there?”
Tess’s preschool musings usually involved unicorns or why broccoli exists. But that afternoon, her question took a darker turn: “Will you cry when I go with Daddy and Mom Lizzie?”
The blood drained from my face. “Who’s Mom Lizzie, sweetheart?”
“You know!” she laughed, as if I’d asked what color the sky was. “She’s always at our house. She says you’re the evil mommy.”
At my mother’s kitchen table, I scrolled through months of nanny cam footage until I found them – Daniel and Lizzie curled together on our couch, his arm around her like she belonged there. The timestamp showed this had been going on for months, right under my roof.
The divorce moved swiftly. I didn’t fight for petty revenge – only for Tess’s stability. Daniel moved in with Lizzie immediately, and I bit my tongue when Tess asked if she could still love them both.
Our girls’ trip to the beach came later – just me, Tess, and my mother. As waves crashed around us, Tess whispered something that healed a piece of my broken heart: “I miss them sometimes. But I think I love you the most.” That night, I finally let myself cry – not for the marriage I lost, but for the strength I’d found.
