Page 34 of The Weight of Her Silence
The way Mom smiled less.
Talked less.
How she never asked Nate where he had been. As if she didn’t want to know the answer.
Ava sat down beside Caleb, silent. Maybe she didn’t want to know either.
“Today,” Caleb added after a long pause, “he said he had a client meeting. But his jacket was in the kitchen. His cardidn’t move. And he came out of the garage like he’d been hiding.”
Ava’s stomach turned. “Are you sure?”
“I waited,” Caleb said.
“I watched.
He’s lying.”
There was a smallness in his voice that made her ache. Like this was the moment something collapsed inside him.
“I hate him,” he whispered.
“No, you don’t,” Ava said softly, but her voice trembled.
He didn’t answer.
Neither of them moved for a while.
Nate
When Ava came to him later that night, Nate was in his study, pretending to work. He hadn’t truly focused in days. Everything he touched turned to dust.
The numbers didn’t make sense anymore. The weight in his chest hadn’t left since Lila had started looking at him like a stranger.
“Can we talk?” Ava asked, standing in the doorway, arms crossed.
Nate looked up and nodded.
“Of course.”
She didn’t sit.
“Are you having an affair?”
The question hit him like ice water.
“What?” he said, too fast.
“I’m not stupid,” Ava said.
“You’ve been distant. Mom’s been... sad and Caleb—he noticed something. And now I’m noticing it too.”
Nate stood slowly, hands up.
“Ava, you don’t understand—”
“Then explain it to me.”
She wasn’t crying. She wasn’t yelling. She was doing something much worse
