The kitchen of our Brooklyn apartment was quiet when I arrived, the only sound the low hum of the refrigerator. I hung my damp wool coat in the hallway, the fabric heavy and smelling of the wet city streets.
I turned on the overhead light and set my keys on the counter. A small, crumpled slip of thermal paper lay tucked beneath the ceramic fruit bowl, looking as though it had been dropped in a hurry.
It was a printed confirmation receipt from the Grand Solmar Resort in Cabo San Lucas, dated for the coming weekend.
The total charge of four thousand eight hundred dollars had been billed to our joint corporate card.
Beneath the room rate, the guest names were printed in clear, bold text: Ryan Calloway and Savannah Brooks.
My fingers went cold as I held the thermal paper, my thumb rubbing the faded ink.
I walked into our bedroom and opened his chest of drawers. The top drawer, where he kept his luxury watches and gold cufflinks, was already half-empty.
The velvet trays that usually held his collection lay stacked in the corner, bare and gray.
I touched my stomach, feeling a tiny, rhythmic flutter. At twenty-four weeks, the weight of the triplets was beginning to change how I walked, how I stood, how I carried myself.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, holding the Cabo receipt in both hands until the paper curled from the heat of my palms.
Savannah Brooks was a social media influencer whom Ryan had hired three months ago to promote our new residential listings. She was twenty-six, with a high-pitched voice and a habit of holding her phone directly in front of her face even during our formal business dinners.
I remembered the way she had laughed at Ryan’s jokes during the autumn launch party, her hand lingering on his forearm for a second too long.
At the time, I had dismissed it as the standard, over-the-top politeness of a young consultant trying to secure her contract.
I smoothed the receipt on the counter, staring at the check-in date of Friday morning.
The kitchen clock chimed nine, then ten, and the apartment remained completely dark.
