Page 43 of The Weight of Her Silence
“He lied to me,” she whispered.
“What do we do?” Caleb asked.
Ava didn’t answer for a long time. Then she slipped the photo into her hoodie pocket.
“We keep looking.”
???
Later that night, when Nate was out “meeting a client,” Ava and Caleb crept into the office again.
They found a second phone. It was hidden in the back of the desk drawer under some old receipts.
It wasn’t locked.
The messages were still there. Most were from someone saved asC.
A hotel room number.
A blurred picture.
A voice memo Ava didn’t dare play aloud.
She didn’t cry. Not then.
Caleb sat beside her, silent. He didn’t ask what it meant. He already knew.
“I hate him,” Caleb said suddenly.
His voice cracked, and he blinked fast, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.
Ava didn’t say she hated him too. She didn’t need to.
She just reached over and took his hand. They sat there in silence, staring at a truth they could no longer unsee.
The picture.
The phone.
The messages.
It wasn’t suspicion anymore.It was proof.
Their father was not the man their mother believed him to be and now, nothing in their house felt safe.
Not even the silence.
Ava sat cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, laptop open, a worn leather journal from her mother’s desk resting beside her. Caleb was curled up on the rug, chin on his knees, watching her.
“You’re sure this isn’t wrong?” he asked quietly.
Ava didn’t look away from the screen.
“It’s already wrong. We’re just… finding out how much.”
Caleb hesitated.
“Do you think Dad’s cheating?”
