MY HUSBAND LEFT HIS PHONE HOME AND A MESSAGE FROM A STRANGER POPPED UP
His phone vibrated on the counter, showing a name I didn’t recognize attached to a message.
The text just said, “Can’t wait for tomorrow night, Sunshine. Did you get the confirmation?” My stomach dropped to the floor like a lead weight I couldn’t lift. The *cold* smooth glass of the phone felt instantly alien and wrong in my hand, a direct contrast to my rising heat.
Who is this person calling him ‘Sunshine’? He hasn’t called me anything remotely like that in years, barely calls me anything at all lately. I scrolled through his recent calls and texts, a sickening wave washing over me with every swipe. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, not at first glance anyway; just work stuff and his mom. The *sharp* smell of the bleach I’d just used cleaning the kitchen suddenly made my eyes water like crazy.
Then I saw it – a deleted thread with this exact same number. It was dated two months ago, completely gone from the main list. The first message was a simple “Got it,” followed by a screenshot of… my old street address from years before we moved here. My hands were trembling so violently holding the device I nearly dropped it on the *hardwood* floor beneath my feet.
My head swam, the room feeling suddenly much too small and hot. I quickly clicked the ‘Sunshine’ contact info. No picture, just the number saved without a name. I typed a response back to that number, my fingers clumsy and sticking slightly to the screen. “Who is this? This is his wife.”
Then my doorbell rang, and it wasn’t him coming back home from his ‘business trip’.
👇 *Full story continued in the comments…*The doorbell rang again, a little more insistent this time. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Who could this possibly be? The address on the phone… the deleted message… the name I didn’t know… It all swirled together into a nauseating cocktail of dread.
Holding the phone like a shield, I peered through the peephole. It wasn’t a stranger. It was Sarah, my husband’s younger sister, looking flustered and tapping her foot. Relief warred with confusion. Sarah? Here?
I fumbled with the lock and pulled the door open. “Sarah? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
She pushed past me gently, her eyes wide with panic. “Oh thank god, you’re here! Mark isn’t answering his phone – he left it, didn’t he? I saw your text, ‘Who is this? This is his wife.’ What happened? Did you… did you see…?” She gestured wildly towards the counter where the phone lay.
My throat was dry. “See what? The message? The one calling him Sunshine? The deleted thread with my old address? What is going on, Sarah?” The accusation was thick in my voice despite myself.
Sarah’s face crumpled, then quickly shifted to annoyance, not at me, but at the situation. “Oh, *Mark*,” she groaned, running a hand through her hair. “He is such an idiot. I told him leaving his phone was a terrible idea! Okay, okay, breathe. ‘Sunshine’ is *my* nickname for *you*. Has been since I was a kid and you were so nice to me. Remember? Mark just started using it again recently, making fun of me for it, but he likes it now.”
She paused, taking a breath. “The message… ‘Can’t wait for tomorrow night, Sunshine. Did you get the confirmation?’ That was about your anniversary trip! To the town where you guys first met, near your old street. He was planning a surprise getaway for tomorrow night. I found this amazing little cottage just a couple blocks from your old apartment building, near that park you love.”
My head spun. An anniversary trip? To our old town?
“The confirmation was about the cottage booking,” Sarah continued, her voice lowering conspiratorially. “He asked me to help because I used to live closer to that area. The deleted thread… that was him sending me your old street address again, just to be sure I was looking in the right place, and me confirming I’d ‘Got it.’ He must have deleted it right after because he was paranoid you’d see it and the surprise would be ruined.”
She threw her hands up. “He wasn’t on a ‘business trip’! He drove down to the old town this morning to pick up the keys to the cottage and finalize things in person, make sure it was perfect. He was meeting me there this afternoon, but he’s not answering his phone and I got your text and just *freaked out* thinking you’d somehow figured it out and he’d ruined everything! And I didn’t know what *you* thought you saw…”
The lead weight in my stomach began to dissolve, slowly, replaced by a rush of dizzying relief, then a wave of mortification. I had instantly jumped to the worst possible conclusion. All the clues, twisted through the lens of my own insecurity and the recent distance between us.
Sarah was still talking, rambling slightly about the booking details and how excited Mark was, how he’d been planning it for months. I barely heard her. I looked down at the phone in my hand, the innocent device I had seen as a harbinger of doom moments before. The “sharp smell of bleach” and the “cold smooth glass” now just felt normal again.
“Oh,” was all I could manage. “I… I thought…”
Sarah gave me a sympathetic look. “Yeah, I figured. With him being all secretive and leaving his phone… it looks bad, I know. He’s terrible at surprises. But he really loves you, you know? He’s been driving me crazy trying to make this perfect. That’s why I rushed over here when I got your text – I thought the whole thing was blown.”
She reached out and gently took the phone from my trembling hand, placing it back on the counter. “He’s probably just driving home now, or his battery died, or something. Don’t worry, Sunshine. The surprise is still on. Just… try to act surprised tomorrow night, okay? And maybe tell him he needs to work on his communication skills.” She grinned, a little of her usual cheerful self returning. “Now, how about we make some tea while we wait for the master of disastrous surprises to get home?”
The room felt large again, and the oppressive heat dissipated, replaced by a quiet warmth spreading through my chest. It wasn’t infidelity. It was… a terrible, wonderful, nerve-wracking surprise. My husband, trying, in his own clumsy way. And a reminder that sometimes, the scariest stories we imagine are just that – imagined.