The Secret Game

I sat beside Lacey and tried to keep my voice calm.

“Sweetheart, your father is in Seattle. Maybe you had a dream.”

She shook her head.

“It isn’t a dream. He told me it was a secret game.”

My hands became cold.

“What kind of game?”

“He said I should count how many nights he stayed hidden. If I didn’t tell you, I would win a surprise.”

She showed me the calendar.

There were forty-seven small purple stars.

Each one marked a night when she claimed to have seen her father.

I wanted to believe that a child’s imagination had created the entire thing. Lacey missed Nolan. She often asked when he was coming home. It seemed possible that she had turned that sadness into an elaborate fantasy.

But one detail bothered me.

“What does Dad wear when you see him?”

“The navy sweater with the little hole near the wrist.”

That sweater had disappeared shortly before Nolan left.

I had assumed he packed it.

That night, after Lacey went to sleep, I entered the walk-in closet connected to our bedroom.

I opened every cabinet, moved every box and checked behind Nolan’s suits.

There was nothing unusual.

Still, the air inside felt strangely warm.

As I turned to leave, I noticed an empty bottle of electrolyte water beneath a storage bench.

I never bought that brand.

Nolan did.