The envelope was too thin to weigh anything, yet in Miranda's trembling hands it felt heavier than stone. A thin white rectangle—government seal, clinical lettering, her husband's name typed neatly beside hers. Nothing about its appearance prepared her for what it carried.
Her breath was shallow. The quiet living room felt suffocating, the curtains barely moving even though the ceiling fan hummed steadily above. She could hear the faint tick… tick… tick of the wall clock, each second carving deeper into her chest.
Her husband, Benjamin Blackwood, stood a few feet away. His arms were folded stiffly, his face unreadable—except for the storm gathering behind his eyes. He had insisted she open the DNA test result. He'd said it so calmly earlier, but now the calm was gone. It had evaporated into a terrible stillness.
"Open it!!" he bellowed. Voice full of anger.
Miranda swallowed hard. Her thumb slipped under the seal. She felt her heart battering painfully as she unfolded the paper.
One line. One sentence. One truth that shattered everything.
"Probability of paternity: 0.00%."
Her stomach flipped. The room tilted. The air felt thick like she was breathing through wool. The edges of the paper cut faintly into her fingertips—she realized she was squeezing it too hard.
Benjamin stepped forward. "Miranda," he said, voice cracking. "What is this?"
His eyes were already glassy, already wounded. She opened her mouth—but nothing came out. Her throat felt stuffed with sand.
She scanned the paper as if hoping for a misprint. Her jaw tightened. A tremor ran down her arm.
"No, no…" she whispered, staggering back a step. Her hands pressed into her forehead. "No… this isn't… this can't be…"
She took a step toward him instinctively, but he flinched away like her touch burned.
The baby monitor glowed softly on the counter; little Ethan was asleep upstairs, one month old today, with Benjamin's brown hair, his grey eyes and Benjamin's smile.
But not Benjamin's blood.
"Benjamin—"
"Miranda." His voice cracked like thin ice. "Who is he?"
She couldn't speak. The words were lodged somewhere between guilt and shame.
Miranda felt her legs wobble. Her mind scrambled. Panic squeezed her lungs. She looked at the carpet, the ceiling, anywhere but his eyes.
Benjamin ran his hands through his Brown hair, pacing rapidly. "I gave you everything," he muttered. "I worked, I provided for you—Miranda, tell me the truth!"
She opened her mouth, but instead of words, memories surged forward—the past rushing back like a tide: the lonely nights, the quiet house, the empty marriage bed, the feeling of being invisible in her own home…
She pressed her palm against her forehead, trying to breathe.
Benjamin stared at her, waiting, hurting. "Miranda," he said again, this time softer but breaking apart inside, "who is the father?"
Her vision blurred. She felt the prickle of tears. Her body was shaking.
And suddenly—she wasn't in the living room anymore.
Her mind fled backwards and She saw herself standing in the past… in the quiet, sterile silence of her life before everything changed.
<<<< Flashback >>>>
Miranda used to believe loneliness was something that happened to single people. Something that happened to those without partners, without rings on their fingers. She thought marriage shielded a woman from emptiness.
But she had been wrong—painfully and suffocatingly wrong.
Because Miranda was married, yet more alone than she had ever been in her life.
The early months of the marriage had been hopeful. Awkward, yes—arranged marriages always were. They had met as virgins, touched as strangers, and tried to build something in the quiet way two well-mannered families expected.
But routine had swallowed everything.
Wake up.
Work.
Return home.
Clean.
Call husband at night when he was away.
Sleep.
Repeat.
The house was always spotless. The meals always warm. The bed always neat.
And Benjamin—always gone.
His job took him around the country for long stretches. Weeks at a time. Many at times, months. He would come home, kiss her cheek without passion, eat the meals she prepared and talk about work, and then sleep beside her like she was furniture.
And the sex—
God.
The sex was a battlefield of disappointment and then he would fall asleep within minutes of sex that never lasted longer than five Minutes. Always brief. Always silent. An uncomfortable intimacy instead of passionate connection. When she tried to initiate something different—when she timidly suggested turning off the lights, trying a new position, letting herself feel something—his expression would turn dark with suspicion.
He go rigid and then ask. "Where did you learn that?" His eyes would narrow accusingly. "Are you reading something? Are you watching things? Or …. "Are you seeing someone?"
She would recoil, shocked. "Of course not! I just… wanted something different. Something more."
But he never believed her. He took every suggestion as an accusation of inadequacy.
Eventually, she stopped trying.
What was the point of wanting when desire only made her feel guilty?
So she lived silently, smiling politely, swallowing boredom until it soured into emptiness.
Her only escape was the small coffee shop she managed—her pride, her distraction, her companionship when the house felt too hollow. The café was warm, filled with quiet chatter, the aroma of toasted beans, and people who looked alive. People who laughed. People who weren't trapped in a loveless routine.
That café saved her sanity.
It also ruined her life.
Because it was there she met him.
The stranger.
The man whose accent rolled like warm honey.
Whose smile was easy.
Whose eyes lingered on her like he actually saw her.
<<<< Back to the Present >>>>
"Miranda!" Benjamin's voice snapped her back.
She jerked, breathing like she had been underwater.
"Where was your mind just now?" he demanded, his voice ragged. "Tell. Me. Who. The father. Is."
Her lips parted. Her heart pounded violently.
"I… I can't," she whispered.
"You can't?" His voice cracked again, but anger bled through more sharply this time. "Miranda, that child—YOUR child—is not mine. And you're telling me you 'can't' tell me who you opened your legs to?!"
She flinched. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Shame and fear twisted in her stomach.
"I don't know where he is anymore," she confessed in a trembling voice. "He left the country. He's gone."
Benjamin staggered back as if she had stabbed him. His face drained of colour. He stared at her with disbelief, betrayal, pain he wished she hadn't caused.
"So you admit it." His voice was hollow. "You've been with another man."
Miranda squeezed her eyes shut. "Benjamin, you were never home… you never—"
He held up a hand. "Don't you dare blame me for this."
Seeing the raw pain in his eyes, something snapped inside her—guilt morphing into years of buried resentment, the loneliness, the suffocating boredom, and the sheer terror of this moment combined into a vicious weapon.
"It's your fault!" she screamed, staggering to her feet, tears and snot streaming down her face. "It's your fault I cheated! You were never here! I was alone! And when you were here, you were a ghost! You didn't touch me! It's as if am your kept trophy on display!"
She jabbed her finger into his chest, her voice rising to a frantic pitch. "You know what the worst part was? The bedroom! You barely lasted four minutes! I was dying of boredom, Ben! Dying! He made me feel alive! More than you ever did in all the years of our marriage!...…. I had the chance to leave you but I stayed because I felt sorry for you! I felt sorry for the pathetic man who couldn't keep his wife satisfied!"
The attack was savage, completely unhinged. When she finished, Miranda was sobbing, panting, spent.
The silence that followed was chilling.
Benjamin's face grew still—too still. A terrifying calm washed over him.
He walked past her slowly, like his body weighed a thousand pounds. He picked up his keys from the table.
"Benjamin, wait—"
"I'm done," he said softly, deadly quietly. "You've said enough."
"Benjamin—please—"
But he didn't look back.
The door closed.
He didn't return that night.
Or the next.
A few days later, divorce papers arrived.
Miranda's world collapsed—shattered into pieces that cut deeper than the sharpest glass.
And as she stood in the living room, holding the results that destroyed her marriage, she could only clutch her shaking hands to her mouth and sob silently—because the truth had finally caught up with her.
And the past she tried to bury was rising again.
Waiting to be told.
Waiting to be relived