My Daughter's Last Design

Woodward didn't come home that night.

My pillow was damp, my eyes dry and aching. I slowly sat up, gazing at the flat, gray sky outside. The world felt leached of all color.

I sat on the edge of the bed for a long time before moving to the study and opening his iMac. I found an encrypted folder. On a bitter hunch, I typed in Cassandra’s birthday. It opened.

Inside were intimate photos from a European vacation and a chain of emails.

I had never touched his computer before. I believed marriage was built on trust.

But now, I needed the truth, no matter how much it hurt.

I opened the emails. They were love letters from Woodward to Cassandra, filled with the tenderness and deep affection he had never once shown me.

I closed the laptop, a profound, overwhelming exhaustion settling over me. There was no jealousy, no rage—just emptiness.

Suddenly, a hundred small, ignored details clicked into place.

When Cassandra first moved in, Woodward had been uncharacteristically helpful, taking the initiative to get her settled. But Woodward had never been the neighborly type.

At first, Paige had called him "Woodward," but that soon shifted to "Uncle Woodward."

He never corrected her. In fact, he seemed to bask in it.

Yet when Aria was alive, he'd rarely had the patience to sit and draw with her for more than thirty minutes.

He was capable of kindness and patience. Just not for me. Not for our daughter.

Woodward and I met in a university art history class. He was magnetic, the kind of person who lit up a room.

Marrying him felt like an impossible dream come true.

He had sat across from me, a polite, distant smile on his face, and said, "My parents like you. You seem like a decent, suitable wife. We should give it a try."

I thought my years-long crush had finally, miraculously, been reciprocated.

For ten years, I'd poured every ounce of myself into this family, tirelessly managing our lives. No one was grateful. No one ever asked if I was tired.

They just said, "Laird, you're so capable."

Even Cassandra had said it. "Laird, you're amazing. You handle everything so well. I fall apart over the smallest things."

I had just smiled. All this "capability" was born from a marriage where I was entirely on my own.

Cassandra wouldn't know that. She was coddled. Even after her husband died, she still had Woodward to lean on.

Just then, the front door opened. Woodward walked in, calling my name. "Laird, last night Paige..."

His voice trailed off as he found the bedroom empty and followed the light into the study.