It was Dante. My husband. He was wearing the shirt I had bought him during one of his trips to Chicago, the one with the hand-stitched monogram on the collar that I'd had custom-made because he said he liked things that no one else could have.
Two years ago, April 21, was the day I lost our first child. While I lay in the cold, sterile operating room, undergoing a D&C procedure, my "on-a-trip-to-Chicago" husband was celebrating another woman's birthday.
The irony was almost suffocating.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wedding ring, turning it slowly against my skin without realizing I was doing it. The band was white gold, engraved on the inside with the Moretti family crest. A mark of belonging. A brand.
My hands trembled as I scrolled further through her posts. Since that day, she had been flaunting all kinds of luxury items, each one identical to things I owned, except for one.
A jasmine-scented perfume.
Every handbag, every pair of shoes, every silk scarf. Mirror images of what sat in my closet. As if someone had studied my life and built a duplicate of it in a safehouse across town. The thought made my stomach turn, and it wasn't the pregnancy.