Chapter 3 - The Unopened LetterBack in the present, Cameron’s hands shook uncontrollably as he reached out and picked up the white envelope from the bed.
His name—Cameron Vance—was written with terrifying clarity. There were no smudges, no tear stains. Just cold, perfect ink.
He tore the flap open, his fingers fumbling with the paper inside. He pulled out a single sheet of heavy cardstock and began to read aloud, his voice trembling in the empty room.
"Cameron,
If you are reading this, it means you finally came home. It means the party is over, the cake has been eaten, and your mother has received all the applause she demanded for turning sixty-five.
You told me I was being dramatic. You told me waiting a couple of hours wouldn't kill me.
You were wrong.
Our son, Leo, died on an operating table while you were raising a glass to toast your mother. He suffocated because my placenta tore away from my uterine wall, and the heavy bleeding cut off his oxygen supply. The doctors said if I had arrived at the hospital twenty minutes earlier—if you had just driven me instead of walking out—he would have taken his first breath in this world instead of his last.
I survived, Cameron. But the woman you married didn't make it out of that operating room.
On the bed beside this letter, you will find our son's ashes. That is all that remains of him. As for me? Don't bother looking for me. Don't call my phone—you’ve always been great at ignoring it anyway. My lawyer will be in touch with the divorce papers.
Goodbye, Cameron. Enjoy the rest of your life with your mother. You earned every second of the loneliness waiting for you.
— Sienna."
Cameron dropped the letter. It fluttered down like a wounded bird, landing face-up on the carpet.
"No..." he sobbed, burying his face in his hands. "No, no, no! Sienna, please! This isn't real! This is a nightmare!"
He scrambled to his feet, bolting out of the bedroom and tearing down the hallway. "Sienna! Sienna!" he screamed, flinging open the doors to every room.
The guest bedroom was empty. The nursery—painted a soft, calming sage green with a brand-new crib, a rocking chair, and a mobile of wooden stars dangling from the ceiling—was completely stripped bare.
The crib was gone. The dresser was gone. Even the curtains had been unhooked from the rods. It was just an empty, hollow room with bare walls, as if a child had never been expected to live there at all.
Cameron staggered backward, hitting the hallway wall. He pulled out his phone again, desperate, frantic, and dialed her number.
“The subscriber you have dialed is no longer in service, or has been disconnected.”
May you like
He stared at the screen in pure shock. She hadn't just blocked him. She had canceled her entire phone line, closed their joint bank accounts—he checked his mobile banking app with trembling fingers and saw a notification: Account balance: $12.45—and wiped every trace of her existence from the house.
She had planned this down to the last second. And he had walked right into the trap.
