His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 02

His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife Chapter 02

I was woken by Ethan talking on the phone in the living room.

His voice was low, full of the kind of gentle patience one used to soothe a terrified animal.

“Breathe, Lena. Just do what I say… Yes, inhale… Imagine you’re on the beach, not in the car… That fire is over…”

I walked barefoot out of the bedroom. Ethan stood at the kitchen island, phone cradled against his shoulder while he poured kale, banana, and almond milk into the blender. He was preparing the green smoothie he insisted was “good for my body,” while devoting ninety percent of his attention to healing the “survivor’s guilt” of the girl on the other end of the line.

A perfect, compassionate man. As long as you weren’t his wife.

When he saw me, he hurriedly told the phone, “I’ll call you later,” and hung up. The blender roared to life. A moment later, a painfully green liquid was poured into a glass and pushed in front of me.

“Your breakfast.”

I sat on the barstool and reached for the glass. Just as my fingertips brushed the cold surface, he reached out and slapped my hand away.

It wasn’t hard, but it was deeply insulting.

“Wait.”

I watched as he took out his phone, found the perfect angle for the smoothie with my blurred figure in the background, and snapped a picture. He expertly added a “Rise and Shine” filter, sent it to Lena, and added a caption: *See, family mornings are always healing.*

Only after all that did he put down his phone and push the “healing” green liquid back toward me. “Drink up.”

Nausea surged in my stomach. My appetite vanished.

“Why are you livestreaming our life to her?” I leaned back, my voice cold.

“Don’t make it sound so ugly, Nora.” He seemed not to register my disgust, shrugging carelessly. “The kid needs to feel some normal family warmth. It’s good for her trauma.”

“So you gave her the emergency blanket I sewed by hand?” My voice was quiet, but each word landed like a cold stone. “The one I was planning to put in our car before the next wildfire season.”

Ethan froze for a second. His brow furrowed, that familiar look—the one that said I was failing to see the bigger picture—settling on his face. “She heard the weather report say the winds would be strong, and she started panicking. I just wanted to make her feel safe.”

“She also ‘borrowed’ the keychain I gave you, the one engraved with the coordinates of our first apartment. It’s hanging from the keys to her new car now.”

Lena was like a parasitic vine, silently winding herself around my life, feeding on the traces of my existence. She wore the same perfume I did, went to the galleries I frequented, and posted “chance encounter” photos on social media of herself and Ethan in the same places, striking similar poses.

And my husband enabled all of it. He even personally handed her the things that belonged to me, things that carried our shared memories, one by one.

“I don’t like her using my things.” I looked him dead in the eye and enunciated every word.

“For God’s sake, Nora, can’t you be a little more generous?” Ethan’s patience finally snapped. Disappointment washed over his handsome face. “She just sees you as a role model! She admires you and wants to be like you. What’s wrong with that?”

I had nothing left to say.

I thought I should be angry. A few years ago, I would have thrown that disgusting drink in his face and demanded to know what he thought our marriage was. A charity showroom where anyone could come and take what they pleased?

But now my heart was a dead sea, corroded by acid rain. Heavy, numb, incapable of a single ripple.

Arguing took strength, and mine had been exhausted under the operating room lights, in the unanswered calls, in that cold *Got it*.

“Hm. You’re right.” I nodded calmly.

Then I picked up the smoothie he had so carefully prepared—the one that symbolized “healing” and “warmth”—walked to the sink, and poured every last drop down the garbage disposal.

When I flipped the switch, the shriek of the blades filled the kitchen.