The morning my ex-boyfriend becomes my boss, I am eating an overnight Pret sandwich in the office kitchenette.
Egg salad. Stale. The fridge fluorescents make it look gray. I take a bite anyway because I have a 9:30 budget review and I haven't eaten since yesterday's reheated pad thai.
Priya pushes through the door at a near-run, heels clicking on the polyurethane floor. "All-hands. Conference room. Five minutes ago. New leadership wants to introduce themselves."
"I have budget review."
"Budget review is canceled. Everything is canceled. Bring your laptop and try to look excited."
I swallow the rest of the sandwich without chewing. It goes down like wet drywall.
The conference room is at capacity. Forty marketers crowded around the long table and bleeding out into standing rows along the windows. I find a seat near the back, open my laptop, type the date into a blank Google Doc so I look occupied.
The double doors swing open.
Charcoal suit. Silver tie. The face that walked out of my life on October 14, 2023.
Elliott Pei stands at the head of the room and lets his eyes do one slow sweep. The sweep lands on me.
The pen in my hand drops onto the carpet.
"Wren," Brendan whispers from the next chair. "You okay? You know him?"
I bend down to pick up the pen. My face has the composure of a body fresh out of cold storage.
"No."
He starts speaking. Standard new-leadership boilerplate — the acquisition closed last week, Pei Capital is excited about NovaPraxis Bio's oncology pipeline, no immediate org changes, his door is open, etc. I keep my eyes on the Google Doc. I type the words not real not real not real and then delete them.
When he gets to the closing pleasantries he says, without looking up from his notes:
"Marketing — Wren Donovan. Stay back, please."
Forty heads turn in my direction in one synchronized swivel. Brendan exhales through his teeth. Priya makes a face I will never forgive her for.
I sit very still until the room empties.
He waits until the door clicks shut. Then he tosses a folder onto the table in front of me. The cover sheet says NovaPraxis / Pei Capital — Integration Brief.
"Three years," he says. "You're doing well for yourself."
I produce a smile from somewhere shallow. "Mr. Pei does fine for himself. Buys companies like other people buy groceries."
His jaw moves. Something behind his eyes is on a low burn.
"Why did you quit. Why did you change cities."
I close the folder. "Mr. Pei. It's working hours."
He steps closer. Closer than the table allows.
"And after working hours? You're going to explain it to me?"
I take a half-step back. The words come out before I check them.
"That's not convenient. My husband would mind."
The room goes the kind of quiet that hums.
Elliott's eyes drop a centimeter, then another. "Husband."
My nails dig into my palm. "Yes."
"Name."
"Bill."
A pause. "American."
"American. Yes."
He laughs — short, soft, almost private. "Wren. Your lying hasn't gotten any better in three years."
I lift my chin. "We have a son. His name is Timmy."
The laugh dies.
A lie, once you've spoken it out loud, grows its own legs.
Two o'clock budget review. Elliott takes the head of the table. I am, by some intentional act of seating-chart sadism, on his right.
I walk through Q4 paid-channel spend. He doesn't interrupt. He doesn't take notes. He lets me finish.
Then he flips two pages back in the deck.
"Family-segment ad spend is over-indexed."
"Young families are a growing share of our oncology-survivor support audience. The data backs the allocation."
He looks up. "You know a lot about young families."
Someone at the back of the table snorts into their coffee.
I do not blink. "I have a son."
Elliott caps his pen.
"How old is Timmy."
My mind goes blank for one full second.
"Two and a half."
"Likes."
"Cars."
"What kind of cars."
"...Strollers."
Brendan is now openly coughing into his sleeve. Karen Doyle, our VP Finance, looks like she is composing a HR ticket in her head and rejecting drafts.
Elliott's mouth tilts at the corner. The expression you'd give a deposition witness who just said something useful.
"Bill doesn't mind?"
I match the smile. "Bill's reliable. Works hard, makes it home for dinner. Unlike certain people in this room."
His face goes flat in one click.
The meeting ends. I stand up too fast and my laptop charger tangles around the chair leg. By the time I free myself the room has emptied except for Karen, who is waiting for me by the kitchenette like a parent who saw something at parent-teacher conference.
"Wren. You're married?"
I refill my coffee very carefully. "I keep things private."
"Two and a half years old?"
"Mhm."
Her eyes go bright. "Picture?"
My hand stops mid-pour.
In the doorway behind her, Elliott has paused. Just paused — laptop under his arm, on his way somewhere else, but not anymore.
Karen, helpful: "Mr. Pei, you want to see too?"
I have not said yes. He's already walking in.
"Yes."
I open my camera roll. I scroll up.
No kid.
No husband.
One photo of an orange tabby asleep on the wooden bench outside the Trader Joe's on Memorial Drive, taken last Sunday when he wouldn't move and I thought he might be dead.
I hand the phone over.
"This is Timmy."
Karen does not say anything.
Elliott studies the photo. He scrolls — once, twice — confirming there are no other children stored on this device. Then he looks up.
"He really takes after you."
I take the phone back. "Thanks. Everyone says so."
He leans in. Close enough that only I can hear.
"I'm coming to your apartment tonight. To see if he calls you mom."
The next morning, the stroller is parked next to my desk.
UPPAbaby Vista V2. Off-white leather handlebar. Wheels so polished I can see my own death reflected in them.
A semicircle of marketers has formed.
"Wren — that's, what, eleven hundred bucks?"
"Did your husband send it?"
"No, the card says E.P."
I snatch the card. For Timmy. — E.P.
I march into Elliott's corner office. He's reviewing a contract with a felt-tip pen. He doesn't look up.
"Like it?"
"Mr. Pei. If you have a medical condition you should see someone about it."
He looks up.
"Doesn't your son need one?"
"My son doesn't need an eleven-hundred-dollar one."
"Bill can't afford it?"
I slap the card down on his desk. "What do you want from me."
Elliott stands.
"Seven o'clock tonight. Your apartment. Dinner."
"Not convenient."
"Then I'll have someone pull your marriage license from Suffolk County records inside the hour."
My chest jumps.
He walks around the desk. Stops a foot in front of me.
"Wren. You'd better hope Bill and Timmy both exist."
I look at him. And I laugh. A real one, surprised out of me.
"Elliott. You really haven't changed at all."
His eyes catch on something. He doesn't answer.
I pick up my bag and walk out.
Back at my desk I call Maeve.
"I need help."
She is on the phone with one hand and applying a sheet mask with the other. "What did you do."
"I need a husband and a four-year-old. By seven o'clock tonight. At my apartment."
Three full seconds of silence.
"Wren. Have you finally lost it."
"My ex-boyfriend is doing a home inspection."
She sits up. The plastic sheet mask slides. "Elliott Pei."
"Yes."
She swears, fluently, for several syllables.
"Stay there. I'll find you a guy."
"A reliable guy."
"Reliable, hot, expensive, signs an NDA."
By six fifty I have erased every trace of single-woman from my apartment. I plant a pair of men's slip-ons in the entryway closet. A men's toothbrush in the holder. A small-handled sippy cup on the counter, still in its plastic. I leave a die-cast yellow Tonka truck on the floor by the radiator like it just got dropped there.
Seven o'clock. The buzzer goes off.
I take a breath. I open the door.
There is a young man in the hallway. He is twenty-something. He has Elliott's nose and Elliott's mouth, with thirty percent more eyebrow.
In his arms is a small boy.
The boy looks up at me. He says, in the unfiltered piping voice of a four-year-old who has been told this is a game,
"Mommy."
I almost go to my knees.
The young man grins.
"Big bro's lady. I'm Cassidy Pei."
My first instinct is to slam the door.
Cassidy gets a foot in. "Sis-in-law. Don't break my ankle. Bone density takes a long time to come back."
"I am not your sister-in-law," I hiss.
The kid in his arms blinks at me. "Mommy. I'm hungry."
My phone vibrates. Maeve.
— forgot to mention. actor flaked. i found someone juicier. — cassidy pei. eli's half-brother. — the kid is a friend's kid. name's theo. just call him timmy, he'll roll with it.
The hallway elevator dings.
Elliott is here.
He steps out holding a bottle of red, walks the length of the hallway, and stops dead when he sees Cassidy with the kid in his arms.
Cassidy clutches Theo tighter and grins like he's about to get punched and find it educational.
"Bro. Came to crash dinner?"
Elliott's face goes the temperature of the hallway light bulbs after an hour off.
"Why are you here."
Cassidy looks at me. Looks back.
"Coming home."
Elliott's grip on the bottle tightens.
"Whose home."
Cassidy bends his head and kisses Theo's beanie. "My wife's, obviously."
The skin on the back of my neck lifts.
Theo, helpfully, waves a tiny hand at Elliott. "Hi mister."
Elliott looks at me.
"Bill?"
I close my eyes for one full second.
Cassidy raises a hand cheerfully. "Bill. American name."
I let all three of them into the apartment.
Elliott sits on the couch like an officer of the court who has come to inventory the furniture. Cassidy lowers himself next to me with Theo on his lap and a casual arm along the back of the couch like we have rehearsed this for a play.
I pour Elliott a glass of water.
He doesn't touch it.
"How long have you been married."
Cassidy: "Three years —"
Me, on top of him: "Two."
The room goes the kind of quiet that hums.
Theo holds up the Tonka truck I planted by the radiator.
"Mommy. I have to pee."
I scoop him up and bolt for the bathroom like he has just delivered a presidential pardon.
I shut the door behind us. Theo whispers, gravely, "Was I good?"
I look at his round shining face. "You're a star. I'm getting you anything you want."
He says, with the precision of a kid who has prepared for this question, "I want a backhoe."
From the living room: Elliott's voice, not loud but cleanly audible through the cheap door.
"Wren. Your son needs you to hold him for ten minutes to pee?"