“If you cannot even look me in the face, why do you keep calling me your wife?”
Lydia Vance could barely stand when she asked standard-issue questions to Chad Montgomery inside their sunlit apartment in the quiet district of Maple Heights. She had returned home a few days earlier after a grueling reconstructive surgery that lasted more than seven hours. The left side of her face, her neck, and her arm were still wrapped tightly in thick bandages, and every small movement brought a sharp, stinging pain.
Chad arrived wearing a sharp business suit, looked at the fully set table, and said absolutely nothing. He walked straight past her and went into the master bedroom. Minutes later, Lydia heard the distinct zipping sound of a large suitcase opening on the bed.
“Where are you going?” she asked, leaning heavily against the doorframe for support.
“Phoenix,” Chad replied without looking up. “One client meeting came up, so I will be gone for one week.”
His cell phone vibrated inside his inner jacket pocket, but Chad reached in and silenced it immediately without pulling the device out into the open.
“The surgeon said I should not stay alone right now,” Lydia whispered, her voice trembling slightly.
“Call your parents,” Chad replied coldly while packing his shirts. “They have been coming around to check on you anyway.”
Lydia felt a deep coldness spreading through her body that hurt far more than her surgical wounds. Just four months earlier, she had willingly sprinted into a burning house to pull Chad out of the roaring flames.
That disastrous night, Chad had come home thoroughly drunk after a late night with his drinking buddies and fell fast asleep in the guest room. In the early hours of the morning, an electrical fault ignited a rapid fire inside the home they were renting in the suburbs of Pinecrest. Lydia managed to escape outside, dialed 911, and only realized once her feet hit the sidewalk that Chad was still trapped inside.
The horrified neighbors shouted at her not to go back into the inferno, but she ignored them and ran inside. She advanced low to the floor through dense smoke and scorching heat until she found Chad completely unconscious, then dragged his heavy body down the hallway. The direct heat scorched her face, neck, and arm, while Chad escaped with minor smoke inhalation, a few scrapes, and a small burn on his hand.
Lydia spent weeks in the intensive care unit enduring painful skin cleansings. Before the accident, Lydia worked as a successful beauty consultant and commercial model for Velvet Glow, a high-end cosmetics store in midtown Lexington. Chad, who owned a local media agency named Beacon Creative, had met her three years earlier during an advertisement shoot.
When Chad woke up in his hospital room that first night, he broke down crying in deep gratitude. “You saved my life, and I swear I am going to be with you through every single surgery.”
For the very first month, he actually kept that emotional promise. But then he stopped hugging her, moved his belongings into the guest room, and started taking sudden trips while receiving hushed phone calls behind closed doors. His parents, Brenda and Walter, also stopped visiting her entirely. Before the fire, they used to boast to everyone about having a gorgeous model daughter-in-law, but now they always found convenient excuses to stay away.
