I believed him when he said we couldn’t afford preschool. I cut back on luxuries, took on extra freelance work, and tried to be everything for our daughter, Emily. She was bright, curious, and ready for more than I could give between deadlines and dishes. I found the perfect preschool—Little Explorers Academy—but Greg shut it down instantly. “We just can’t afford that,” he said, slamming the counter.
It didn’t add up. We weren’t rich, but we weren’t struggling either. We owned our condo, took vacations, and lived comfortably. So why was $1,100 a month suddenly impossible?
Then I found the envelope.
Buried in a junk drawer, it was addressed to Greg from a luxury apartment complex downtown. Inside was a receipt: $3,400 paid monthly for Unit 504B. My stomach dropped. That wasn’t our address. That wasn’t our life.
I drove there, heart pounding, and knocked on the door. My mother-in-law, Meryl, answered in silk pajamas, sipping a smoothie. “Sandra? What are you doing here?”
She lived there. In a high-rise Greg was secretly paying for. While I was told we couldn’t afford preschool for our daughter, he was funding a luxury lifestyle for his mother.
“I raised him alone,” she said. “He owes me.”
But what about Emily? What about the sacrifices I made, the dreams I shelved, the guilt I carried?
That night, I watched Greg feed Emily peas, pretending nothing was wrong. I smiled, pretending too. But something inside me had shifted. Trust, once broken, doesn’t snap back. It frays, quietly.
I don’t know what comes next. But I know this: my daughter deserves better. And so do I.
