The Man Beyond the Hill

Ethan Parker was keeping a younger woman on the side. She looked just like me when I was young. When stomach spasms left me unconscious and landed me in the hospital, he knew what was happening, but still chose to stay with her. “She’s just a kid. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?” After I finally gave up on him, Ethan broke his leg trying to win me back. But no matter how desperately he begged, I never looked back. The day my stomach spasms got so bad I nearly passed out, I discovered Ethan Parker’s secret. He said he couldn’t leave an important business dinner. “Sophie, I’ll come to the hospital as soon as I’m done!” He hung up before I could say okay. The word caught in my throat. By the time my ride arrived, I was barely conscious. I let the driver help me into the car. My mind drifted back to when we first started our business. I’d come down with a sudden high fever, but Ethan was working on a major technical breakthrough for our product, so I hadn’t told him. By the time he got home, my fever was dangerously high. After it broke, he gave me an earful. “Sophie, nothing matters more to me than you. The only reason I work so hard to make money is to give you a better life.” And now… Forget it. There was no point thinking about it. At the hospital, an IV ran into my left hand. I was afraid that if I fell asleep, no one would notice when the bag ran dry. I scrolled through Instagram to keep myself awake. I sent Ethan a message. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Your health comes first.” An account I followed had posted an update. It was a confessions account. People often submitted stories about cheating boyfriends and husbands. Today’s submission was from a man. “My wife had a stomachache, but my girl said she missed me and asked me out for drinks. I figured it was just drinks. What was the harm? My wife is understanding. I knew she wouldn’t keep calling. She texted that she wasn’t feeling well. My girl got annoyed by the notification, and I let her put my phone on silent.” “Young girls can be so clingy. She said her stomach hurt and wouldn’t let me leave. She lay in bed while I gently rubbed her belly. She used my phone to order everything she wanted. Watching her act so spoiled, I couldn’t help thinking how cute she was.” “After she fell asleep, I checked the purchases, then looked at my wife’s text telling me not to drink too much. Guilt hit me out of nowhere. My wife is so used to being frugal that even now, she agonizes over buying a necklace. Meanwhile, I’d spent enough on my girl to buy several.” Stomachache. Necklace. Those familiar details sent a chill straight through the IV line and into my heart. A few days earlier, I’d fallen in love with a necklace. But when I saw the hundred-thousand-dollar price tag, I walked away. Being frugal was second nature to me. When we started our business, we lived in a basement apartment. In the summer, we wouldn’t even turn on a fan. At night, we went to the subway station to enjoy the air-conditioning. Sometimes we ate just one meal a day, saving every penny to put into our little company. Even now that we had money, the habit was ingrained in me. The comments were full of insults. “Who says people aren’t having kids anymore? Apparently this guy adopted a girlfriend.” I closed the app as if I could escape what I’d read. It had to be a coincidence. Other people got sick. I wasn’t the only woman in the world who wanted a necklace. Ethan finally arrived just after dawn. He hurried over and pressed a hand to my forehead. “Sophie, I’m so sorry. I had no idea last night’s client would be so difficult.”The worry and concern in his eyes looked real. But I noticed his shirt was buttoned wrong. It was also different from the one he’d worn before. Ethan had always taken pride in his appearance. What kind of business dinner required him to change clothes before coming to see me? He took out a box. When I opened it, my heart sank. A necklace. “Honey, haven’t you wanted this for ages? You wouldn’t buy it, so I did. What’s the point of making all this money if we don’t spend it? If you want something, buy it.” He assumed I was pale because I was still sick. Suddenly, I remembered a comment from the night before. “A sudden burst of affection is just a cheater’s guilt.” After that exhausting night, I went home with a heavy heart. It happened to be Saturday, and we were both tired. I was tired because I’d been sick. What was his excuse? He went to take a shower and left his phone outside. Almost without thinking, I picked it up and unlocked it. I opened his Instagram messages. There was the profile picture of the confessions account I knew so well. It felt as though a fist had closed around my heart. Still unwilling to believe it, I kept searching his phone. The contact pinned to the top of his Snapchat was named Sweetheart. So intimate. Their messages laid out every detail of his affair. I knew the girl. Her name was Lily Hayes, and she had a bright, lively energy. All the things I’d overlooked came rushing back. Lily had joined us as an intern during her senior year of college. Later, she’d been promoted to Ethan’s assistant, despite her lack of experience. Once, Ethan had gotten drunk at a business dinner, and Lily brought him home. She supported him as she walked straight into our living room. “Sophie, don’t be mad at him. I’m terrible at drinking. Ethan only got this drunk because he was drinking for me.” Before leaving, she reminded me to make him a cup of honey water to ease his hangover. “Sophie, I remember your honey is in the upper kitchen cabinet. Don’t forget.” She seemed very familiar with my home. At the time, I’d assumed she was just a young woman fresh out of college who had read too many romance novels and developed unrealistic fantasies. But I trusted Ethan completely. We’d known each other for twenty-eight years, after all. Now their messages felt like a hard slap across the face. For Lily’s birthday, Ethan had filled an entire room with flowers to make her happy. A thirty-year-old man, writing a little birthday message for every bouquet. How romantic. A trace of jealousy ran through her messages. “Do you do this for your wife’s birthday, too?” “No. She’s pretty much immune to romance.” Ethan used to buy me a flower for every birthday and holiday, too. But flowers were expensive. To me, they were something that would only wither. A single stem cost more than twenty dollars. I’d told him I loved it, but he didn’t need to buy me flowers anymore. Cooking me a meal would be enough. Everything I’d spared him out of love had been lavished on someone else.At the end of their conversation, Ethan had written: “If only I’d been born a few years later. Or if only I weren’t married.” “Ugh, you’re the worst. As punishment, I’m taking your necklace. Your wife gave it to you, and I hate looking at it.” I heard something inside me shatter. I’d made that necklace myself. Our names were engraved on it. His wedding vows still echoed in my ears. “Sophie, I finally get to marry the love of my life. I’ve never felt so lucky.” But now he was telling another woman: “If only I weren’t married.” Pain wrapped around me like a net, leaving no room to breathe. Ethan came out of the shower and caught me holding his phone. His expression changed. He rushed over and snatched it from me. “Sophie Bennett! Since when do you have so little respect for boundaries? Who said you could snoop through my phone?” I stared at his bare neck. “I just picked it up to put it on the dresser.” Ethan relaxed. I had no respect for boundaries? He was the one who had made his passcode the same as mine. “You can look at my phone whenever you want. I have nothing to hide from you.” “Ethan, did your business meeting go well last night?” He froze for a moment, then pressed his lips together. “It was fine.” Without warning, tears spilled down my face and soaked into the comforter. I almost never cried like this. Stunned, he came over and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. It was just a reflex. I raised my voice a little. Why are you crying so hard?” “Ethan… I feel awful. It hurts so much…” I couldn’t stop sobbing. Ethan apologized again for not coming sooner the night before. He brought a hot-water bottle and carefully held it against my stomach, massaging me. His eyes were filled with tenderness and love. After twenty-eight years of knowing him and ten years of loving him, I could no longer tell whether any of it was real. I wasn’t the heroine of some revenge fantasy. Twenty-eight years together had woven our lives into flesh and blood. I couldn’t just walk away without a second thought. And our financial interests were tangled together beyond recognition. I couldn’t simply cut him out of me. “Ethan, your assistant was rude to me when I visited headquarters the other day. Fire her. I don’t like her.” Ethan froze. “She’s just a kid. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”