Unfolding Her Shadows

While I was lying in a hospital bed bleeding out after being stabbed, my husband and son were across town sharing a candlelit dinner with the woman they’d chosen to replace me. I spent twenty years sacrificing my career to build their perfect lives, only to realize I was the only thing in our house that was disposable. They think a few tears and a grocery-store cake will win me back, but they’ve forgotten one thing: I’m the engineer who built this family, and I’ve finally decided to scrap the project.