Mark was still on the line, his silence now heavy and accusatory. He was waiting for her to confess to a crime she had not committed, to admit to an affair that existed only in his fractured, paranoid mind. She realized then that there was no way to explain the shoes, no way to convince him that he was the one who had been stalking her. The photograph was not just a picture; it was the evidence of a marriage that had been rotting from the inside out for a long time.
She slowly lowered the phone, the screen still glowing with the image of her own unsuspecting face and the dark, hidden shoes of her husband. The wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the oak tree in the photo, and for a fleeting second, she felt as though she could see the man behind the bark, watching her through the lens of his own device. She did not speak. She simply ended the call, the silence of the paddock suddenly feeling vast and insurmountable.
