My best friend, Nancy, and I took our kids to the amusement park—me with my six-year-old daughter, her with her five-year-old son. After a fun day, we stopped for ice cream. While chatting, I showed Nancy a few photos from our recent vacation—just me, my husband, and our daughter.
Her son suddenly pointed at one picture and said, “THAT’S DADDY!” Nancy laughed and said, “No, sweetie, that’s not Daddy,” and turned the phone away. But he insisted, “It is! He came last week and brought me a teddy bear.”
She laughed again, but I felt uneasy.
I pulled up a photo of my husband alone and showed it to him—despite her protests. He looked straight at it and said, “That’s him.”
My stomach dropped. I looked at Nancy, searching her face for any hint that this was some kind of joke, some misunderstanding.
But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. She was focused on stirring her coffee, suddenly quiet. “Nancy…?” I said carefully, trying not to sound accusatory. “Why would he say that?”
She finally looked up, her expression soft but tight around the eyes. “Kids say weird things, you know that.
He probably saw someone who looked like your husband—maybe a cartoon or something?”
“He said he brought him a teddy bear.”
“He has lots of toys. Who knows who gave him what,” she mumbled, but even her voice lacked conviction. I couldn’t sleep that night.
My husband, Mark, was snoring softly beside me, and every time I looked at him, a thousand thoughts raced through my mind. The next morning, I called in sick and drove to Nancy’s house. Her son, Lucas, answered the door in his pajamas, rubbing his eyes.
When he saw me, he smiled and said, “Hi! Are you bringing Daddy again?”
I froze. Nancy came up behind him quickly, clearly surprised to see me. “Hey, what are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” I said firmly.
She hesitated but opened the door wider. “Okay. Come in.”
Lucas ran off to play, leaving the two of us in awkward silence. I didn’t beat around the bush. “Nancy, tell me the truth.
Did Mark come here?”
She exhaled shakily, tears already brimming. “I didn’t plan for it to happen. I swear.”
My heart sank. I sat down, numb. “So it’s true?”
She nodded, wiping her face. “It was just once.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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