In the beginning, life felt simple. I cooked breakfast, did the laundry, while Daniel worked long hours but always came back to help Helen with the baby. Helen’s health was still fragile, and her milk dried up early, so little Nora depended on formula. Watching her tiny eyes blinking up at me, I felt both joy and worry. But only a few weeks after I arrived, something strange began to happen.
Night after night, around two or three in the morning, I would hear the faint sound of the refrigerator door creaking open.
I initially believed it to be a mouse or perhaps something rattling from the wind.
Slowly, though, I became aware that there was a visitor in the kitchen. When I slipped out one evening, I noticed Daniel searching the refrigerator in the dark. Instead of going back to bed, he got something out and crept stealthily onto the balcony. He stood there for hours at a time.
I initially thought he was simply hungry at this late hour. But then—why sneak? Instead of eating in the kitchen, why not eat outside on the balcony? My heart began to race. Though Daniel had always shown Helen respect, was there something he was concealing? Were there financial difficulties? Or worse? I couldn’t stand to watch Helen suffer because she was still getting better. So I choose to be vigilant.
The next night, I pretended to sleep but kept my ears sharp. Sure enough, just before dawn, the refrigerator opened. I tiptoed out and peeked through the crack of the door. To my astonishment, Daniel was holding baby Nora’s formula canister.
He carried it onto the balcony, sat down, mixed a small amount with water, and slowly drank it. My chest tightened. A thirty-year-old man secretly drinking his own infant’s formula in the middle of the night?
From then on, I watched closely. Every night, the same ritual repeated.
