“It’s not about trust, Caleb. I don’t understand you. I don’t know who you are lately.”
He just sighed and walked away.
Every time I tried to confront him, he had an excuse ready.
He looked startled to see me standing there.
He’d say, “He settles faster if it’s just me,” or “If you come in, he’ll smell the milk on you and want to nurse, and then we’re back to square one.”
At first, I tried to be understanding. I blamed the hormones. I blamed my own exhaustion.
I told myself that Caleb was just grieving. His father died back in college, and his mother passed away right after we found out I was pregnant. Jeremy would never know his grandparents on Caleb’s side.
That’s a heavy thing to carry.
I told myself that Caleb was just grieving.
Maybe becoming a father without your own parents to guide you does something to your wiring.
But then, my thoughts took a darker turn.
Those voices I’d heard…
Was he talking to someone else? Was he having an emotional affair? Maybe he was texting some ex-girlfriend while he was supposed to be rocking our son.
The secrecy was so intense that it felt like betrayal.
Those voices I’d heard… Was he talking to someone else?
***
One morning, Caleb had to leave for work an hour early.
I was exhausted, but Jeremy was gurgling softly while enjoying some “tummy time,” so I decided to change the crib sheets — a chore Caleb usually insisted on doing himself.
I leaned over to tuck in the corner, and the dirty sheet slid off my shoulder and dropped to the floor.
I bent down to grab it, and that’s when I saw something chilling.
I decided to change the crib sheets.
Taped to the underside of the crib frame, hidden in the very back corner, was a smartphone.
My stomach didn’t just drop; it did a slow, agonizing somersault.
I reached back and peeled away the duct tape keeping the phone in place. It was an older model, a cheap burner-type thing. My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped it.
I pressed the power button. It flickered to life.
There was no passcode.
Taped to the underside of the crib frame was a smartphone.
I went straight to the messages. There was only one thread.
I opened it and scrolled to the bottom. The most recent message was sent at 8:15 p.m. the night before — right when Caleb was locked in the room with Jeremy.
“She’s starting to suspect something. If she finds out what I did, she’ll take the baby.”
My vision went blurry.
What did you do, Caleb? What could possibly be so bad that I would take our son away?
The most recent message was sent at 8:15 p.m. the night before.
I started scrolling up, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm in my ears.
I expected to find evidence of another woman, or some horrible secret, but as I read, I realized those messages weren’t about cheating. They were all about Jeremy.
I stared at the number at the top of the screen.
I recognized it now.
Caleb was texting confessions to a dead woman.
These messages weren’t about cheating.
That night, when Caleb went into the nursery with Jeremy, I waited outside the door. I heard the shuffling: the sound of him moving the chair to reach the phone under the crib.
Five minutes later, I knocked.
“Caleb? Open the door.”
I heard the shuffling again. The lock turned.
“I told you—”
I stepped inside and walked straight to the crib.
The lock turned.
“Caleb, we need to talk,” I said as I reached under the crib and removed the phone.
The color drained from his face so fast I thought he might faint.
The phone was still turned on. I opened the message thread and played the first voice memo.
“He won’t settle, Mom,” Caleb’s voice whispered through the speaker. “He prefers her. I can tell. When I hold him, he looks at me like I’m a stranger. I’m trying… I’m trying so hard.”
I played another.
I opened the message thread and played the first voice memo.
“I snapped today. I didn’t yell, but I said, ‘Can you just be quiet for one second?’ in this mean, scary voice.”
Then another.
“I left him crying in the crib for three minutes today because I felt like I was going to explode. You always told me to do that if it got overwhelming. But I felt like I abandoned him.”
Caleb slumped against the changing table.
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