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My wife.

It’s fucking bizarre.

For weeks she’s existed in my phone. A name. Messages and pictures. A voice I hear most nights.

She’s told me when Shiloh has a good day. When he has a bad one. She sent me a picture of the first attempt at making pancakes and another of the smoke detector afterward. She’s argued with me about Christmas lights. She’s informed me that my son needs more vegetables and I need more Christmas spirit.

Somehow I know she hates raisins.

I know she drinks coffee with enough cream to make it barely qualify as coffee.

I know she says, “Oh my goodness,” when she’s startled and “shit” when she thinks Shiloh can’t hear her.

I know she sleeps on her side because Dottie keeps sending me pictures of her passed out with my son.

But I’ve never stood in the same room with her until now.

I’ve never heard what her breathing sounds like when she’s nervous. Never seen the little crease that forms between her eyebrows when she doesn’t know what to do with her hands.

“Welcome home,” she says.

Something shifts inside my chest.

Those words. Hearing her say them. Standing in my kitchen.

Dottie normally says, “You’re back.” Shiloh says, “Daddy!” My assistant says, “Welcome back, Mr. Kane,” in the tone of someone ready to detail me on all the appointments I have scheduled.

But welcome home is different. Welcome home feels like someone was waiting.

I swallow thickly. “Thank you.”

She smiles.

Fuck, that smile is worse in person. I need to get out of this kitchen immediately.

“Daddy, look!”

Shiloh holds up something that vaguely resembles a snowman if the snowman was killed in a tragic industrial accident.

“That’s good.”

Noelle snorts.

I look at her.

She clamps her lips together.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

“You disagree?”

“Of course not. Shiloh is very creative.”

“You made a noise,” I insist.

“I did not.”