Chapter 1
Chapter 1
It was Memorial Day.
My husband was supposed to pick up our twin daughters from school.
But halfway there, he got a call from her–his first love, Vanessa.
So he ditched them.
Left them on the side of the road and told me to go pick them up.
I was in a meeting with a potential client.
I dropped everything and rushed over.
But I was too late.
Sophia was hit by a car–she died instantly.
Natalie was barely breathing.
She clung to me, sobbing, saying, “Mommy, it hurts… Where’s Daddy?”
He didn’t show up.
Not before the ambulance.
Not before Natalie took her last breath in my arms.
I was sitting in the middle of the street, holding both my daughters‘ bodies, screaming until my voice gave out.
That same moment, Vanessa posted this on Instagram:
“Real love is dropping everything just to be there when he needs you.
With you, I swear–I’m the luckiest girl on the planet.”
Attached was a photo of her and Eric, heads together, their hands above making a heart.
I took a screenshot and sent it to him.
“So our daughters don’t matter as much as your precious Vanessa, huh?”
At the funeral, he finally replied:
“They were seven, Emily. They didn’t need you anymore. But Vanessa does.”
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“Eric Johnson, I want a divorce.”
I sent the text with tears still wet on my cheeks and turned off my phone.
I stayed at the funeral home with my twin daughters Sophia and Natalie for three days.
Three full days of crying until I had nothing left.
On the fourth day, they were cremated.
I came home holding their urns in my arms–only to walk in on Eric feeding Vanessa dinner.
They were laughing, smiling like this house had always belonged to them.
Before, I might’ve tried to talk to Eric.
Tried to remind him that our girls were gone.
But now?
He and Vanessa could rot together for all I cared.
Vanessa glanced at me, still chewing, head high like a queen on her throne.
Like she’d won.
And maybe she had.
Eight years of marriage, and Eric never once fed me a bite.
Our daughters had to beg him just to get that kind of attention.
Vanessa opened her lips again, pointed at the food like a damn movie scene.
Eric smiled, eyes all soft and gooey, and picked up his fork to feed her.
That’s when he noticed me.
All the affection drained from his face.
Now he looked irritated, like I was the one who ruined the moment.
“You’ve got a hell of a nerve showing up here,” he snapped.
“I called you over a hundred times! Where the hell have you been?”
Where have I been?
I was holding our daughters‘ ashes, that’s where.
He glared like it was my fault.
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But with Vanessa?
He was this gentle, dependable man who was “always there when she needed him.”
1 scoffed.
“If you even cared one ounce about this family, you wouldn’t have left the girls on the side of the road.
If you had been any kind of father… they’d still be alive.”
He looked away.
Cold. Detached.
Then said, “Don’t start with that guilt trip crap.
You were the one who didn’t come home for three nights.
Is that what a wife and mother is supposed to be?”
He had the nerve to ask me where I took the girls.
As if they were still alive.
As if he hadn’t abandoned them.
I stared straight into his eyes.
“You mean the daughters you tossed aside for your little flame over there?”
Sophia and Natalie were just seven years old.
They never got to grow up.
Never got to enjoy life.
Now they were ashes in a box.
And this man–this monster–still thought he did nothing wrong.
“All I asked was for you to pick them up once,” I said, shaking.
“But Vanessa was having a bad day,‘ so you chose her?”
Eric rolled his eyes like I was being dramatic.
But all I could see was Natalie coughing blood, whispering, “It hurts, Mommy.”
And Sophia’s lifeless body lying in the street.
Meanwhile, Vanessa looked perfectly fine in that photo-
Chapter 1
Smiling, glowing, making heart shapes with my husband.
And he had the audacity to say she “needed him.”
I took a deep breath.
Then said it again:
“Divorce.”
22:11
