Call The Police For An Egg

I had a fever, so I boiled myself an egg.

I didn’t expect my son to come home and call the police.

“There’s a thief in our house,” he told them, dead serious. “She stole one of my eggs.”

The officers thought it was a joke.

Evan didn’t.

“Ms. Blake gave me those eggs. They’re imported. She stole from me, so she should be arrested.”

Then he looked at me like I was a stranger.

“Mom’s just lazy. She’s pretending to be sick. No wonder Dad likes spending time with Ms. Blake.”

I bit down hard to keep from crying.

It didn’t help.

To him, my silence was proof I was guilty.

“Ms. Blake said people who do bad things always act pitiful,” he added coldly.

When my husband got home, he didn’t even ask how I was.

“You sit around all day and still say you’re sick? Sounds like you just have too much time to be dramatic. If you were half as thoughtful as Sophie, I wouldn’t be this exhausted.”

I almost laughed.

When I had a 102-degree fever, he said the clinic was too expensive.

But when his secretary mentioned her villa felt a little cold, he signed a thirty-million-dollar contract without hesitation.

He was never stingy.

Just never with me.

That was the moment I stopped caring.

That night, I stared at the message my father had sent me.

And made a decision.

Tomorrow, I was going home,

not as his wife,

not as anyone’s mother,

but as the heiress I had always been.

After the first decent night’s sleep I’d had in ages, I was jolted awake by my phone.

Adrian Cole’s voice blasted through the speaker.

“Vanessa Sterling, where the hell are you? Evan didn’t go to school. His teacher called me directly. Are you trying to let this whole family fall apart?”

Before I could answer, Sophie Blake’s soft, affected voice drifted in from the background.

“Mr. Cole, don’t be angry. Vanessa still might not be feeling well. It’s just that Evan is already late. If the teacher asks too many questions, it might not look good for you.”

That was all it took for Adrian’s temper to flare.

“What does she know about looking good? She sits around the house all day pretending to be sick and lazy, and she still can’t handle one child.

“You did this on purpose, didn’t you? You wanted to embarrass me.

“I must have been blind when I married you. You don’t have half of Sophie’s sense.”

I hung up.

A second later, my phone started buzzing again. Adrian’s name flashed across the screen over and over.

I muted it and tossed it onto the nightstand.

The old me would never have dared.

Ten years ago, when I first met him, I followed him around like a fool in love.

When he worked late in the winter, I stood outside his office building for two hours in a down coat just to hand him a cup