Chapter 2

The world felt different now, sharper, colder.

My small apartment, once a sanctuary of memories, now felt like a prison built by Mark's lies.

Every photo of him, every little trinket I'd saved, it all mocked me.

His firefighter helmet, displayed on the mantelpiece, a symbol of his supposed bravery, now seemed like a cruel prop.

I remembered all those nights I cried myself to sleep, clutching his pillow, whispering his name.

How I'd told Leo stories of his brave daddy, the hero who saved people.

What a fool I'd been.

My love, my grief, my unwavering loyalty, all for a man who was alive, a man who chose to abandon us.

He hadn't just died, he had actively erased us.

The Hendersons, Mark's parents, they knew. They were in on it.

Their sympathetic looks, their shared tears over "Mark's" death, it was all a performance.

They grieved David, perhaps, but they let me grieve Mark.

They watched me struggle, a young widow with a child, and they kept his secret.

To "protect" Sarah? What about protecting me? What about protecting their own grandson from the devastating truth that his father was alive but didn't want him?

Leo.

My sweet Leo.

He'd sometimes look at "Uncle David" – Mark, living as his dead twin – with a strange, puzzled expression.

A few times, he'd slipped, "Daddy?"

Mark, as David, would always correct him, sharply, "No, Leo. I'm Uncle David. Your Daddy is in heaven, remember?"

The memory of those moments now made my stomach churn.

Mark, standing right there, denying his own son.

How could he be so cruel?

Each correction wasn't just a denial, it was a fresh stab of his betrayal into Leo's innocent heart, and mine.

I had dismissed Leo's slips as a child's confusion, his longing for a father.

Now I knew. It was more. It was a child's intuition, a deeper connection he couldn't name.

My poor boy. He wasn't confused, he was recognizing his own father.

The "support" Mark, as "Uncle David," had offered over the years – the occasional check, the help fixing a leaky faucet, his presence at Leo's birthday parties – it all felt tainted now.

It wasn't kindness, it was a performance.

It was him playing a role, the concerned uncle, while he lived a lie.

Those interactions, which I had once cherished as a connection to Mark's family, now felt like calculated moves, manipulative and self-serving.

He was keeping an eye on us, maybe assuaging some tiny speck of guilt, but never enough to tell the truth, never enough to reclaim his son.

The Mark I knew, the Mark I married, the Mark I mourned, he was truly dead.

This man, this "David," was a stranger, a cruel imposter.

The love I had for Mark, it curdled into something cold and hard.

I had to protect Leo, and I had to protect myself.

There was no going back.

The life I had before, the one built on Mark's memory, was gone.

I had to build a new one, on solid ground, on truth.

Even if that truth was ugly.