On Thanksgiving, Lila receives a mysterious package that shatters everything she thought she knew about her marriage. What follows is not just betrayal, but reckoning. As the lies unravel, Lila must decide whether to crumble… or rise to something stronger than they ever imagined.
I still remember the smell.
I remember the cinnamon, the butter, and the warmth of the kitchen with its slightly fogged windows. Blake, our dog, was curled up under the table, and my husband, Cole, was humming off-key as he unpacked the groceries in front of me.
It could have been any Thanksgiving, any gentle, lovely Thanksgiving where I could sit and truly be thankful for my life.
I was cutting carrots and potatoes when the doorbell rang.
It could have been any Thanksgiving…
“Are you waiting for someone, Lila?” Cole asked, looking up.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. My parents were out of state on vacation, and Cole’s parents had chosen to have Thanksgiving dinner with Cole’s sister, Kelsey. “What about you?”
She shrugged and turned to open a pie. I wiped my hands on a tea towel and headed for the door, more distracted than curious. The filling was in the oven, the potatoes were waiting, and the sweet potatoes were waiting to be mashed.
And I was eager to tell Cole my news. Our news…
“Are you waiting for someone, Lila?”
But when I opened the door, there was no one there. There was only a box: small, brown, and with no return address.
I looked around, confused, then took it to the kitchen and left it next to the cutting board.
“Someone left this, honey,” I said. “There’s no note or name.”
Cole turned mid-stride, still holding the pumpkin pie. For a moment he stared. Then his face changed, only slightly, but I saw it.
When I opened the door, there was nobody there.
A flash of panic appeared on my husband’s face.
Cole’s fingers tightened around the aluminum casserole dish, likely damaging the rim.
“What is it?” he asked, trying to sound nonchalant, but his voice was too high-pitched. “Honestly, it’s likely some kid is playing a prank on us.”
I ignored it and opened the lid.
Inside was a roast turkey, perfectly browned and still hot.
“Honestly, it’s likely that some kid is playing a prank on us.”
“What the hell?” I asked, taking the bird out.
And then I saw it.
Next to him was a pregnancy test —unmistakably positive— and a small black USB drive. My fingers faltered.
Above it was a folded note with neat, winding cursive writing.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Lila.”
I thought you’d like to see this.
XO, Vanessa.”
Next to him was a pregnancy test…
Vanessa. The woman who worked with my husband.
My hand trembled around the paper and I looked at Cole, who was staring at the pregnancy test.
“Vanessa?” My voice broke once. “Did Vanessa send this?”
My husband didn’t answer.
“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
“Lila… I… this isn’t what it looks like. It looks worse than it is,” Cole said, opening and closing his mouth.
“She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
“So what’s it all about, Cole? Explain it to me,” I said, letting out a short, sharp sigh.
“I didn’t want it to happen,” she finally said. “It was stupid. I just…”
“What? Did you slip up and fall into an affair?”
He took a step toward me. I stepped back and put a hand on my stomach.
“You know what, Cole?” I began. “I’m pregnant too. I was going to tell you after dinner and show you the positive test and the ultrasound. But… you beat me to it, didn’t you? With Vanessa.”
“What? Did you slip up and fall into an affair?”
Cole’s face turned white.
The cake trembled slightly in her hands and she placed it on the table without saying a word.
“Lila, really? You’re pregnant! You mean…”
I picked up the flash drive and went into the living room, measuring every movement. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t ask for permission.
I sat down at the desk, opened the laptop, and inserted the USB drive into the port with fingers that didn’t seem to be mine.
Cole’s face turned white.
The screen lit up.
Vanessa appeared first, wearing my bathrobe, the blue lace one. Her hair was damp. She was drinking my wine, from my glass, on my sofa. The camera shook at first, but then stabilized. Her voice filtered through the speakers, soft and cruel, as her voiceover took over the room.
“You know it’s like that, Lila. People make videos and take pictures of the things they’re most afraid of losing. Cole made this one. He likes seeing me like this, in your space, on your sofa… Does he record these kinds of videos of you?”
Vanessa appeared first,
I was wearing my bathrobe, the blue lace one.
I froze, my hands clenched in fists on my lap.
The camera panned and there he was. Cole. Sitting next to her. Whispering in her ear with a smile that sent shivers down my spine.
“You’ll never see it coming,” he said.
“Are you recording this, honey?” Vanessa asked.
“Yes, it’s important to me.”
The video cut to another clip. Vanessa, now sprawled on our bed and talking on her cell phone, with the duvet wrapped around her as if she belonged there.
Whispering in her ear
with a smile that gave me goosebumps.
“She thinks she’s so clever,” Vanessa said, ruffling a lock of hair. “Flying around for her little marketing job. Meanwhile, I’m sleeping in her bed. Wearing her robe… and drinking her wine.”
I didn’t understand what Vanessa was doing or why Cole was filming her being so… cruel . But he seemed to enjoy it.
I closed the laptop tightly.
“Lila, I…” Cole said, standing in the doorway, his eyes wide.
I closed the laptop tightly.
“Out,” I said, in a low, confident voice.
“It’s Thanksgiving, honey,” she said, as if the date could excuse her actions.
“I don’t care what day it is!” I shouted. “But you’re not staying here! Not with me. And especially not with my baby.”
“Where am I supposed to go?” he asked.
“That’s not my problem, Cole,” I said. “You made your choice. Now live with her. Go with her. Go celebrate your baby with her.”
“Go with her.”
He didn’t speak again. He grabbed his keys and left. I didn’t follow him. I didn’t see him leave.
I simply sat in the silence and listened to myself breathe.
Later, I made myself some tea and sat in the same chair where Vanessa had filmed herself. I stared into space for a long time. My stomach churned, but I didn’t cry.
I made plans.
During the following week, I packed Cole’s things into boxes and left them in the garage. I made appointments with a lawyer, a therapist, and my doctor. I blocked Vanessa from everything.
My stomach churned, but I didn’t cry.
He tried to call me twice, but I didn’t answer.
I watched the video again, not to hurt myself, but to understand the depth of the disrespect. Each clip was another small truth revealed. Vanessa laughed while talking on the phone, tossing her hair like a soap opera villain.
“Now I own his life,” she said, smiling. “He keeps everything so clean and so perfect. But perfection is boring and predictable, Dawn… isn’t it? I mean, you wouldn’t cheat on your wife if perfection was everything. I make Cole laugh. I make him breathe.”
I heard Cole laugh softly as the camera shook.
“I mean, you wouldn’t cheat on your wife if perfection were everything.”
“Yes, she’s here, Dawn. She says she feels at peace,” Vanessa said, laughing and leaning toward the camera. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
Cole appeared next to her, his arm lazily resting on the back of the sofa.
“She doesn’t have to know everything,” he murmured, his voice softening. “Lila always wants proof of everything… she’s obsessed with timelines. I can convince her it’s all in her head… But I promise you, Vanessa, she doesn’t suspect a thing.”
I paused.
“I can convince her that it’s all in her head.”
My pulse was racing. I felt dizzy. They hadn’t just acted behind my back: they had studied me. And they counted on me being too trusting to notice the cracks.
“Calm down, Lila,” I told myself. “You have to stay calm for the baby.”
That night, I took out a new notebook and scribbled on the first page:
“You won’t forget it.”
I documented everything: from my business trips to the strange charges on our joint credit card. I counted the bottles of wine that disappeared. I scribbled down the time the scent of my pillow no longer belonged to me.
“You need to stay calm for the baby’s sake.”
It wasn’t for a trial or anything like that: it was for me, an account book.
As pregnancy took hold of me, I stopped flinching at the silence. I grew to find peace in silence. And even Blake stopped watching the door.
Three months later, Cole was handed the divorce papers as he left a bar he frequented.
“You didn’t have to go that far, Lila,” he told me when he called me that night.
I grew up finding peace in silence.
“Oh, I haven’t even started,” I said, in a calm and serene tone.
After I filed for divorce, Cole sent me four text messages and left two voicemails. They were all rambling, angry, and desperate.
I didn’t answer.
My lawyer said I was stunned, that he thought I would eventually “calm down”.
But I didn’t calm down.
They were all scattered, furious, and desperate.
I kept writing in my journal, not only about what they were doing, but also about what I was building. I wrote about repainting the bedroom. I kept the robe Vanessa wore and donated the sofa they sat on.
Nothing in my house would carry his scent.
I went to the doctor’s appointments alone. I sat in a childbirth preparation class next to a couple who kept whispering sweet nothings to each other. At first it hurt, but then I felt something stronger.
Peace.
One night, the baby gave its first kick. I sat on the edge of the bed and cried into my hands, not because I was afraid, but because I finally understood.
Nothing in my house would carry his scent.
This child was mine. Entirely mine.
“Let me be a part of it, Lila. I made a mistake. I can be in both my children’s lives—” Cole once said in a voice message.
I deleted it without listening to the end.
When the due date arrived, the nursery was finished and I felt like myself again.
Vanessa, clinging to relevance as if she owed it something, leaked parts of the recording to a tabloid. She must have thought that would make her famous. Another scorned woman with a juicy scandal.
This child was mine. Entirely mine.
But it blew up in his face. He lost his job, then his apartment, and eventually, I heard that people stopped calling him back.
The world went on without her. I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
Cole’s life unraveled at the same time. HR launched an internal review after the photos surfaced. It turned out Vanessa wasn’t the only “work friend” he’d kept secret.
I almost felt sorry for her.
His rise stalled, and instead of signing new contracts, he was signing his termination papers. I learned from a mutual friend that he was living in a shared apartment, and then he moved back in with his parents.
When Ethan was born, Cole was jobless, rootless, and had nowhere to spin his lies. He didn’t show up at the hospital.
I chose the name Ethan myself. I painted his room soft greens and blues and rocked him to sleep in the chair my mother had bequeathed to me. For the first time in a long time, the house felt warm again—not haunted, but peaceful and safe.
He did not show up at the hospital.
Two years passed.
Then came Mark, the kind, patient, and deeply human man.
We met at a charity fundraiser. Mark was a single father with gentle eyes and a soothing voice. When I told him my story, he didn’t even flinch.
“That must have taken a lot of strength, Lila,” he told me.
We started our relationship slowly. My son adored him instantly. And that Thanksgiving, we baked a cake together. Ethan was sitting on the counter, his clumsy fingers putting way too much cinnamon into the bowl.
My son loved it instantly.
“Hey, mate,” said Mark, trying to take the bottle from him. “That’s too much!”
My son let out a loud laugh and ducked under Mark’s arm.
The house smelled of butter and sugar. And it felt like home.
That night, Cole called. I didn’t answer, but I put the voicemail on loud.
And he felt right at home.
“Please, Lila… I just want to hear your voice. Just once. I don’t know what my son sounds like… You owe me. It’s Thanksgiving.”
“You don’t owe him anything,” Mark said, locking my phone screen.
And he was right. He didn’t owe it to her.
“But… what are you going to do?” Mark asked gently, drying his hands on a tea towel.
I stared at my phone for a long second, then unlocked it and deleted the voicemail.
“I don’t know what my son sounds like… You owe me.”
“He can’t touch my son,” I said quietly. “He gave up that right the day he gave him up. And he did it… in the divorce agreement, Mark. Cole said he was happy with Vanessa then and that his baby was enough for him.”
“So, it’s over, Lila,” Mark said.
That night, after Ethan had gone to bed, I helped Mark’s six-year-old daughter, Aubrey, brush her curls. She sat cross-legged in front of me, babbling about her favorite teacher and how she wanted to be a “scientist-artist-dancer.”
“So, it’s over, Lila.”
When I gently gathered her hair with a butterfly clip, she looked at me and smiled.
“Dad says you’re very special,” he said.
I smiled back at the sweet girl.
Sometimes I still think about that Thanksgiving: the box, the turkey, the USB drive… and how I could have ruined all of it.
“Dad says you’re very special.”
Instead, she revealed the woman she had forgotten she was.
Cole and Vanessa thought they were tearing something down. What they were really doing was making room for something better. Sometimes I wonder what they’re like, like a twisted family with a son who didn’t ask for this … but then I look at my son and the thought disappears.
Ethan is growing up in a home filled with security, laughter, and love. And Aubrey has my heart in her little hands.
I’m healing… while Mark hugs me.
Something Cole and Vanessa never saw coming.
I’m healing… while Mark hugs me.
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