A little girl standing on the road | Source: Midjourney
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“What do you mean, sweetheart? What new daddy?”
She looked at me as if I’d just asked the silliest question in the world.
“Well, the new daddy. He always takes me to Mommy’s office, and then we go home. Sometimes we go for walks too! We went to the zoo last week and saw the elephants. And he comes over to our house when you’re not home. He’s really nice. He brings me cookies sometimes.”
The floor felt like it dropped out from under me. I kept my face neutral, kept my voice calm even though my heart was pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears.
“Oh. I see. Well, he couldn’t make it today, so I came instead. Aren’t you happy I came?”
“Of course, I am!” She giggled, completely oblivious. “I don’t like calling him Daddy anyway, even though he keeps asking me to. It feels weird. So I just call him the new daddy instead.”
I swallowed hard. “Alright, alright. That makes sense.”
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A man driving a car | Source: Unsplash
A man driving a car | Source: Unsplash
She talked the entire drive home. About her teacher, Miss Rodriguez. About the sandbox and how Tommy pushed her, but then said sorry. Lizzy went on and on about the picture she drew of a giraffe.
I made the appropriate sounds like, “Uh-huh, wow, that’s great!”
But I didn’t hear a word. My brain was stuck on one thought, looping over and over. Who the hell was the new daddy?
And since when did Sophia start taking Lizzy to her office? She’d never mentioned it. Not once.
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When we got home, I made Lizzy dinner. Her favorite chicken nuggets and mac-and-cheese. Then, I helped her with a puzzle while my mind raced.
That night, I lay in bed next to my wife, staring at the ceiling while she slept. I wanted to wake her up and demand answers. But something stopped me. Maybe it was the fear of what she’d say. Maybe it was the need to know for sure before I accused her of anything.
Either way, I didn’t sleep.
A distressed man | Source: Midjourney
A distressed man | Source: Midjourney
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By morning, I’d made my decision. I called in sick to work. Told my boss I had a stomach bug. Then I drove to Lizzy’s school around noon. I parked across the street where I could see the entrance, but far enough back that no one would notice me. Sophia was supposed to pick her up that afternoon at three.
But when the doors opened, and the kids started streaming out, it wasn’t Sophia who walked up to Lizzy.
My knuckles went white on the steering wheel.
“What the…? Oh my God… You’ve got to be kidding me.”
The man holding my daughter’s hand was Ben, Sophia’s secretary.
He’s younger than my wife, maybe five or seven years. Fresh out of grad school, always smiling in those company photos she’d show me sometimes. I’d seen his face in the background of event videos and heard his name mentioned in passing. That’s it. That’s all I knew about him.
Until now.
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A person holding a child’s hand | Source: Freepik
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