Chapter 2 - Shadows on the ScreenNobody laughed now. The truth was, I hadn’t been snooping. The night before, Preston had left his phone on the kitchen counter while he showered. I was chopping vegetables when the screen suddenly lit up. The message was from his uncle Raymond. Raymond ran the family company—Hail Industrial Systems—the company Preston had spent years implying he would eventually inherit.
One sentence appeared on the screen: You nearly cost us the biggest account of the quarter.
Then another: Stop confusing your last name with competence.
I froze. Before the screen went dark, a third message appeared: Ignored the team again.
For years, Preston had described himself as one of the strongest people at Hail. He talked about major clients as if the company depended on him personally. Whenever he mentioned Raymond, he called his uncle demanding, difficult, old-fashioned. But there was always an implication beneath it: Raymond knew Preston was brilliant; Raymond simply didn’t want to admit it. At least, that was the story Preston had always told me.
Three text messages weren’t enough to judge a marriage, I told myself. So I said nothing. Until Preston decided to humiliate me in front of twenty people.
The second the party conversation shifted, he pulled me toward the hallway. “Abby. Come here.”
Once we were out of sight, the smile vanished completely. “How much did you read?”
I stared at him. Not, Why were you looking at my phone? Not, What are you talking about? His first question was: How much did you read? That frightened me more than the messages.
“Why?” I asked.
His jaw tightened. “Just answer me.”
“Was it something embarrassing?”
His voice dropped. “Don’t play games with me, Abigail.”
Five minutes earlier, he had been delighted to embarrass me in front of everyone we knew. Now a single sentence from me had drained every trace of humor from his face.
“You were comfortable making me the joke out there.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t understand what you read.”
Maybe I didn’t. But I understood fear. And Preston was afraid.
Over the next few weeks, I began noticing things I had accepted for years without questioning. Whenever anything went wrong at work, someone else was responsible. Finance was too cautious. Legal slowed everything down. Operations lacked vision. Laura Kendall, one of the company’s senior directors, was supposedly jealous of him. Even Raymond, according to Preston, was threatened by his talent. There was only one person who was never responsible for anything: Preston.
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Then one evening, he came home carrying a clear plastic folder from work. He dropped it on the kitchen island while he went upstairs to change. I didn’t open it. I didn’t need to. The first page was visible through the plastic cover: Performance improvement expectations.
I stood there staring at those words. For the first time, this wasn’t an angry message from an uncle. It was formal. Official. And suddenly, another memory came rushing back.
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