daughter with someone I had never met?
And where was he now?
At the hospital, the emergency team examined Maisie and contacted the regional burn specialists.
The attending physician explained that the injury involved significant partial-thickness burns across parts of her arm and shoulder.
They had controlled her immediate pain and were monitoring her carefully.
She was stable, but the doctors needed to assess how deeply one portion of the burn extended.
“There’s a possibility she’ll need a small skin graft,” the physician told me.
“We won’t know immediately.
We’ll keep evaluating the area over the coming days.”
I nodded because I knew she needed me to understand.
Inside, I felt as though the floor had disappeared.
My daughter had been dressed for daycare that morning.
She had eaten banana slices and laughed because her duck was wearing a mitten.
Now strangers were discussing surgery.
I called Grant again.
And again.
His phone remained unreachable.
At 9:18 p.m., a hospital social worker named Denise entered the consultation room.
She explained that she needed to understand the circumstances of Maisie’s injury and the arrangements that had been made for her care.
Her manner was calm, but I felt frightened by every question.
Who had been responsible for Maisie that evening?
Had I arranged the childcare?
Did I know the caregiver?
Had there been previous concerns about supervision?
I answered as clearly as I could.
“My husband was supposed to be home with her,” I explained.
“He picked her up from daycare.
I was at work.
I didn’t know he had taken her anywhere else.”
Denise wrote down my answers.
“And you haven’t been able to reach him?”
I showed her my phone.
The screen displayed a long sequence of unanswered calls.
“No,” I whispered.
“Not once.”
She asked whether I had family nearby.
I called Aunt Rosa, who immediately left her house and headed toward the hospital.
Then I sat alone, watching the doors to the treatment area.
At 9:57, my phone vibrated.
For one hopeful second, I thought Grant was finally calling.
Instead, it was a message from Tara, a woman I knew through his office holiday parties.
She had sent a screenshot from a social media post.
“Laurel, I’m sorry,” her message said.
“I thought you should know.”
I opened the photograph.
Grant was standing in a private dining room at a fashionable restaurant, his blue shirt sleeves rolled up and his arm wrapped around a blonde woman.
Her name was Sloane Mercer.
She worked in marketing at his company.
I had met her twice.
Once, she had complimented my wedding ring and told me how lucky I was to have such an attentive husband.
Now she was leaning against him while a birthday cake glittered between them.
Grant’s left hand rested on her waist.
His wedding ring was missing.
The caption beneath the photograph said, “Finally got my favorite man all to myself.”
Other pictures showed him kissing her cheek, raising a champagne glass, and smiling as she blew out the candles.
I enlarged one image.
His phone lay on the table beside a folded napkin.
The screen was dark.
I looked at the hospital doors.
Then back at the photograph.
My daughter had been crying for her father while he was helping another woman celebrate her birthday.
