Chapter 4

That night, I started the cleansing.

I built a fire in the pit on the back patio. I started with the photos, the wedding album, the smiling faces from a life that was a lie. Then came the letters, the dried flowers, the small mementos.

I saved the most important for last: a framed copy of the speech I wrote that launched Ethan's political career. The speech that made him a star.

As I held it over the flames, he burst through the patio doors.

"What are you doing?" he yelled, his voice raw, the amnesiac mask completely gone.

He saw the speech. A look of genuine panic crossed his face. He lunged for it, shoving his hand directly into the fire pit to grab the smoldering papers.

"You can't burn this!" he screamed, clutching the scorched frame, his hand red and blistering.

He froze, realizing his mistake. He looked from his burned hand to my face, his eyes wide with fear. He tried to retreat back into his character. "I... I don't know why I did that. This paper... it seems important."

I looked at his burned hand, at the ruined speech, and felt nothing. No pity, no satisfaction. Just emptiness.

"I don't want it anymore," I said, my voice as cold as the night air. "If you like it so much, you can have it."

I turned my back on him and his self-inflicted pain, leaving him standing alone by the fire with the ashes of our past. I went upstairs to check on the final preparations for my departure. I would not be staying to tend to his wounds.

The next morning, Sabrina complained that the large oak tree in the backyard ruined her garden view. It was the tree we planted when Leo was born.

To appease her, Ethan ordered it cut down.

I watched from the window as the work crew arrived. They unearthed the time capsule Leo and I had buried at its roots. It held his first finger painting, a lock of his baby hair, a photo of the three of us on the day he was born.

Ethan didn't even look at the contents. He pointed to the wood chipper. "Throw it all in with the rest of it."

The machine whirred to life, devouring the tree, the capsule, the last physical remnants of my son.

I walked out onto the lawn, my steps steady. I stood before him, the noise of the chipper grinding in the background. I asked him one last time.

"Do you know who I am?"

He wouldn't meet my eyes. He looked away, at Sabrina, who was smiling from the patio. "I don't know you," he repeated, the words flat and final.

That night, the news broke. The Congressman's "unstable" wife had disappeared. Her car was found by the Potomac River, along with a note. A memorial was held. A week later, Maria Lester was declared legally dead.

I woke up in a quiet, sunlit room in a secure government safe house. Andrew Clark, the Vice President, was sitting in a chair by the window.

"Welcome back, Maria," he said softly. "It's over."

"No," I replied, sitting up. "It's just beginning."