For twenty-five years, I’ve been the invisible wife. A pair of hands to clean the house, cook the meals, and keep the lights on. I used to tell myself it was enough and as long as I would continue, they would recognize my worth.
So when I found the necklace on my fiftieth birthday, tucked carefully in the back of the closet, in its velvet box, my breath caught. Princess Diana’s sapphire collection. Something I’d once told him I adored when we first married. Back when he still cared to ask what I liked.
I held it up against my throat in the mirror, the blue stones trembling in my fingertips. I felt silly for the hope that welled up. Hope that he remembered. Hope that for once, he saw me.
I clasped it around my neck, smoothing my dress with hands cracked from scrubbing floors. I almost laughed at myself but I couldn’t stop smiling.
When Johann came home that night, I waited in the hallway like a girl on her first date. My heart did that stupid flutter when I saw him step through the door, coat dripping rain onto the floor.
But the moment his eyes landed on the necklace, the world shifted.
His mouth twisted. His eyes darkened.
“Why are you wearing that?” he spat.
I flinched. “I… I found it while tidying up. I thought— I thought it was for me. For my birthday.”
His face reddened. Before I could react, he grabbed the chain at my throat. The clasp snagged my skin, and I felt the bite of metal as it tore free. Blood rose to the surface, a thin, stinging line down my neck.
“Are you out of your mind?” he snapped, inspecting the necklace like it was a wounded animal. “This was for Kate.”
My stomach dropped. “Kate?” My voice sounded small, childish even to my own ears. My half-sister.
“For her birthday,” Johann said, exasperated, as if I’d insulted him. “You know how much she loves Diana’s collection. And now you’ve damaged it.”
I touched the cut on my neck, wincing. “But… it’s my birthday too.”
He laughed — a cruel bark that seemed to echo through every lonely hallway in this house. “And why would I give you this? Look at you. That dress is worn out, you’re so scrawny you look like you’ll drop dead any day. You’d ruin the stone.”
I pressed my lips together, swallowing words that wanted to come out like knives. “It’s only because of the housework. I guess I need some fresh air and I thought… maybe we could travel. You promised, remember? Japan. The cherry blossoms.”
I forced the memory forward — the only dream I’d dared to keep alive all these years.
But he snorted. “Japan? Are you insane? With what money? You don’t work. You think I’ll waste my money dragging you to see flowers? Be like your half-sister Kate, she earns her keep. She helps with the business. She travels. And you? Just rotting here.”
The words pierced deeper than the necklace ever could.
I wanted to say something, to defend the girl I used to be, but my thoughts were cut off by the sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs.
“Mom!” Samuel’s voice, sharp and cold. My son. My baby boy who I raised with trembling hands and lullabies in the dark but now forgot me, too.
“Mom, did you forget to pick up Leon?” His eyes were blazing. “You were supposed to get him from school. Did you forget again?”
“I— no one told me—”
“So, what? You’re now blaming me when he is your responsibility?” he shouted. “The school called me three times. He’s been waiting for hours. What kind of useless—”
I tried to speak, but he turned his fury on me like a storm. “You know nothing about this house. You can’t even manage yourself. Why are you even here?”
Johann didn’t defend me. He just crossed his arms, glaring like I was a stain on his carpet. “Go pick up my grandson. Now.”
Outside, the sky had opened up, sheets of rain pounding the pavement. I looked around for an umbrella, for keys, but there were none. No one offered. Not even my son.
So I wrapped myself in my thin cardigan and stepped into the storm.
By the time I reached the school, my hair was plastered to my scalp, my shoes ruined. My arms ached from the cold. But when I asked at the front desk, the secretary gave me a puzzled look.
“Oh… Leon? He’s gone already. Kate picked him up.”
Of course she did.
I turned back into the rain, too numb to cry. My legs carried me home through puddles and streetlights that blurred like tears.
When I opened the door, the warmth of the house slapped me like an insult.
Kate stood in the foyer, perfectly dry, Leon perched on her hip. Her smile was syrupy sweet.
“Oh, you’re back. Oops, I forgot to tell you — I picked him up instead. You’re all wet, you poor thing—”
Her words floated around me, but I couldn’t hear them anymore. The warmth drained from my fingers, my vision tunneling to black.
The last thing I saw was the necklace, that stupid, beautiful necklace, glinting at her throat.
Then everything slipped away.
