Second Wife

Chapter 3 — Jenna Knows

Jenna was supposed to be at Sophie’s house studying for a chemistry test. Instead she came home at nine o’clock on a Saturday night with her face pale and her eyes red, dropped her backpack in the hallway, and stood in the kitchen doorway staring at Anna like she’d seen a ghost.

“Honey?” Anna put down the dish towel. “What’s wrong?”

Jenna shook her head. Her hands were jammed in her hoodie pockets. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. Did you and Sophie fight?”

“No.” Jenna’s voice cracked. “We didn’t fight. Can I just — can I just go upstairs?”

Anna had been a mother for sixteen years, and she knew the difference between teenage drama and real distress the way she knew the difference between a thunderstorm and a tornado. This was a tornado.

“Jenna.” She crossed the kitchen and put her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Talk to me.”

Jenna stared at the floor. Her breathing was shallow and fast. When she finally spoke, the words came out in a rush, like she’d been holding them underwater.

“Mom, I saw Dad with a woman at the mall.”

The kitchen went very quiet. The refrigerator hummed. The clock above the stove ticked.

“What mall?” Anna asked, and her voice sounded like someone else’s.

“Ridgemont. In Cedar Hollow.” Jenna looked up, and her eyes were wet. “Sophie’s mom drove us out there because Sophie wanted to go to that vintage place. And I saw him. I saw Dad. He was coming out of the food court with a woman and — ” She stopped. Swallowed. “I ducked behind a pillar. He didn’t see me.”

Anna’s grip tightened on her daughter’s shoulders. “Jenna. Was it — maybe it was a client. Your dad takes clients to lunch all the time — ”

“It wasn’t lunch, Mom.” Jenna pulled away and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “They were holding hands. And there was a little girl with them. Like, a little kid. Six, maybe. And the little girl was riding on his shoulders, Mom. On his shoulders.”

Anna felt the floor tilt. She reached for the counter.

“She had his nose,” Jenna whispered. “The little girl. She had Dad’s nose.”

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Then Anna did what mothers do: she pulled her daughter into her arms and held her while Jenna cried, shaking, sixteen years old and suddenly so small. Anna stroked her hair and said the things mothers say — *it’s okay, it’s okay, shh* — while her own mind screamed.

Cedar Hollow. The Grand Oak Inn. September 4th and 5th. Now a woman, a child, holding hands in a food court.

“Does Dad know you saw him?” Anna asked quietly.

Jenna shook her head against her mother’s shoulder. “No. I ran. Sophie’s mom thought I was having a panic attack.” She pulled back, her face streaked with tears. “Mom, is Dad — is he cheating on you?”

The question hung in the kitchen like smoke.

Anna looked at her daughter — this girl who’d been born screaming and perfect, who had Craig’s dark hair and Anna’s stubborn chin — and made a decision. No more protecting. No more pretty stories.

“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I’m going to find out.”

Jenna nodded slowly. Then, from the depths of her hoodie pocket, she pulled out her phone. Her hands trembled as she opened the camera roll and held it up.

“I took a picture,” she whispered. “Before I ran.”

The photo was blurry, taken from behind a pillar at a bad angle. But Anna could see him clearly — Craig, in his navy blazer, a little girl with dark braids perched on his shoulders, laughing up at the food court lights. Beside him, a woman in a green coat, her hand resting on his forearm.

Anna stared at the photo until the image burned into her eyes. Craig looked happy. Relaxed. The way he used to look on their Outer Banks trips, before Jenna got too old to come along.

The way he hadn’t looked in a very long time.

“Don’t tell him,” Anna said suddenly, grabbing Jenna’s wrist. “Promise me, Jenna. Don’t tell him you saw. Don’t act different. Don’t say anything.”

“Why not?”

Anna looked at her daughter, and the words came from somewhere deeper than reason.

“Because if he knows we know,” she said, “he’ll start hiding better.”

Jenna stared at her. Then, slowly, she nodded. “Okay. Okay, I promise.”

That night, after Jenna went upstairs, Anna sat at the kitchen table with the blurry photo on her phone and the hotel receipt from the laundry room. Two pieces of evidence. A town forty minutes away. A woman in a green coat. A little girl with Craig’s nose riding on his shoulders.

She opened her laptop and searched: *Grand Oak Inn Cedar Hollow OH*.

But this time she didn’t look at the photo gallery. This time she clicked on the guest reviews.

And the fourth review down, posted three weeks ago, stopped her heart cold.

*“Wonderful stay! The staff is so kind to families — we came for the Harvest Festival and my kids loved the pancake breakfast. My husband travels for work too, so we don’t get many weekends together. Can’t wait to come back!”* — Beth M.

Anna read it three times. *My husband travels for work too.*

Then she picked up her phone, pulled up Craig’s location history — the family sharing they’d set up years ago when Jenna got her first phone — and scrolled back through the last two months.

Craig’s dot had been in Cedar Hollow eighteen times.

Eighteen. While she’d been folding his laundry and roasting marshmallows and telling everyone at Thanksgiving what a keeper he was.

Anna set the phone down very carefully, as if it might explode. She looked out the kitchen window at the dark street, at the colonial houses lined up like promises, at the home she’d spent twelve years believing in.

Then she opened a new note on her phone, typed three words at the top, and underlined them twice.

*FIND THE WOMAN.*