I went to my son’s apartment with a duplicate key, convinced I was about to catch my daughter-in-law cheating.
But when I opened the bedroom door, the woman inside wasn’t her. Beside a bottle of champagne sat my own husband of thirty-two years.
And what he told me next was even worse. My name is Patricia Lawson. That afternoon, I slipped into my son Ethan’s apartment in the Lakeview district of Chicago with a key no one knew I had copied.
I had convinced myself I was protecting him. The day before, I had seen his wife, Natalie, laughing with an elegant older man beside a silver SUV.
He opened the passenger door. She climbed inside. To me, the explanation was obvious.
Natalie had a lover. “My poor son works himself to death while she’s out with another man,” I kept telling myself.
So I waited until Ethan was at work and Natalie was supposedly teaching Pilates.
Then I let myself inside. The apartment was spotless. No strange coat.
No wine glasses. Nothing suspicious. Then I heard laughter coming from the bedroom.
A young woman’s voice. Then a man. A champagne cork popped. The woman giggled.
“Oh, my love, you really are a magician. But what if Ethan comes home early?”
