My husband used my mom’s cabin to cheat with his coworkers, but catching him was just the beginning. Next, I discovered his betrayal and his true nature.
I’m Ashley, 33 years old, born and raised in western Massachusetts. By day, I work as a contracts analyst, buried in spreadsheets and deadlines. When the noise gets too loud, when the traffic, the people, and the petty office gossip close in, I don’t escape to a yoga class or a bar. I go to my mother’s cabin. Or at least, I used to.
My mom passed away three summers ago. I still remember that day just like it was yesterday. I turned 30 that summer. Cancer took her away from me. It came fast and lingered. She was 57, stubborn, and soft in all the right places.
The cabin had been her hideaway, a little two-bedroom pine shell tucked between a maple grove and a creek that hummed year-round. She called it her “quiet house,” and she meant that with her whole soul.
When she left it to me, it wasn’t about the deed or the keys. It was sacred. The porch sagged like a tired grin; the woodstove coughed more than it heated, and the roof sighed under the weight of too many seasons.
Still, it was the one place in the world where I could hear myself think, or better yet, hear my mother’s voice when I couldn’t bear my own.
I kept everything the way she left it. Her quilt stayed folded across the back of the couch. A faded jar of her dried lemon balm sat in the window like a shrine. The chipped green mug we used during blackberry season was still in the cupboard. It was mine to protect, and I never, not even once, invited Liam to share it.
Liam, my husband, is 34. He’s charming and tall, always warm to the touch. He’s the man who could make a room feel smaller just by walking into it. But he hated the cabin.
“It’s too far,” he said the first time I invited him.
“There’s no Wi-Fi. No food delivery. Babe, you spend more on gas than you’d save in therapy.”
He liked electric fireplaces and sushi apps. I liked the dead silence and the smell of wood smoke in my clothes.
So I kept the cabin to myself until I learned I wasn’t the only one.
It was a Tuesday, the kind of soul-numbing day that slinks into your bones. A client yelled at me for nearly an hour about a late contract. Madison, the project lead, stole my idea and got praised for it in the team meeting.
Then, a jackknifed truck blocked the on-ramp for three hours on the drive home. I was so wrung out, I couldn’t think. I needed the cabin the way a drowning person needs air.
I texted Liam with little thought.
“Going up to the cabin for a few hours — be back for dinner?”
No reply. Whatever. He might be stuck in a meeting.
I threw my bag in the back seat, grabbed a flannel, and hit the road. The drive itself is like a slow exhale. Leaves shift color halfway there, like even the trees know how to let go. I remember relaxing finally as I turned onto the gravel lane.
Then I saw it.
His car. Parked crooked in the drive, it looked like it belonged there. My chest caved in on itself.
He hated the cabin.
He never came up there. Not once. Not even when I begged.
I left my engine idling and crept around to the side window. My boots barely made a sound on the pine needles. Maybe he had planned something sweet. A surprise? Or maybe I was just overthinking.
I pressed my forehead to the glass and looked inside.
Liam was on the couch with his shoes off, a beer in his hand, and a smile on his face.
Next to him was a woman I’d never seen before. Maybe late 20s, legs tucked under her like she lived there. She was laughing, leaning in, her head tilted just slightly in the way women do when they want to be looked at. And he was looking.
I didn’t make a sound. My breath stilled. My vision blurred just around the edges.
I backed away slowly, heart drumming hard but dull. Got in the car and drove back without touching the radio.
That night, I cleaned the kitchen as if it had insulted me. I scrubbed the sink until my knuckles hurt. I made dinner and left it on the stove. I didn’t cry.
The next day, I bought three wireless cameras: small, black, and discreet. I placed one on the porch, one facing the driveway, and one aimed straight through the living room window. I told myself it was for safety.
“If you ever get a break-in…” I mumbled into the mirror, a toothbrush hanging from my mouth.
The cameras showed everything. I didn’t have to wait long.
That Friday night, his car appeared again. Then hers. It was a different woman this time.
He ushered her inside, displaying practiced courtesy. They laughed and sat close together. She slipped off her shoes as if she had done it before.
He had a pattern. Every week, there was a new face, a new woman, but always the same routine. Their voices stayed soft. There was always wine. The touches were never clumsy. They were rehearsed. Once, a man came with them. I think he was a coworker. He brought a six-pack and smiled like the whole thing was a game.
But it was the notebook that made everything real.
One night, I stopped by Liam’s home office to grab a sweater. The room smelled of his cologne and coffee. I shouldn’t have opened the notebook on his desk, but I did.
It wasn’t a journal. It was a ledger.
Names. Initials. Ratings.
“7/10: good laugh, fun in the kitchen.”
“8/10: brings wine, stays late. Quiet.”
The last page was titled, “Top Picks / Best ‘Getaway.'”
I felt my hands go ice-cold. I filmed every page with my phone. My mouth was dry.
When I sat on the edge of his desk, I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t even angry. I felt hollow.
This wasn’t a man cheating. This was a man cataloging, ranking, and playing.
I didn’t confront him. I didn’t scream. My mom used to say, “If you’re going to act, then act like you mean it. Quiet and clean.” So that’s what I did.
I kissed him hello, made dinner, and even asked about his meetings.
He called me “unflappable.” Said it like I was a prize.
When he suggested a weekend getaway at the cabin, saying, “Just us, babe. No phones. Reconnect,” I said yes.
“Sounds good,” I said, smiling just enough.
That Friday, we packed the car together like newlyweds. He brought his favorite plaid shirt. I packed my mother’s quilt and the photo albums.
The cabin welcomed us with its usual creaks and the familiar scent of cedar. I made coffee and sat on the porch, watching the light fade behind the trees. Inside, I set the kettle on, opened a bottle of red wine, and placed our wedding album on top of his black notebook.
At dusk, I opened the living room camera feed on my phone and left it face down on the table. Silent.
At around ten, the gravel crunched.
The porch light flicked on.
She walked in as if she knew where to step.
He smiled the same rehearsed smile. She kissed his cheek as if she’d done it a dozen times.
“Make yourselves comfortable,” I said, not moving from the kitchen.
My voice was syrup-slow.
“The kettle’s on.”
They froze.
Liam looked like he had swallowed glass.
And I smiled back.
“Hey,” Liam said, barely above a whisper.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t raise a single dish. That wasn’t how I operated.
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. I placed it gently on the table in front of him.
“Thought you might want to see this,” I said.
He recognized his own handwriting immediately.
The words were simple but cut like glass.
“Quiet, good at hand-holding. 8/10.”
“Best kitchen talk, stays late.”
“7/10 — would repeat.”
And then, at the bottom: “We should keep this off the record.”
His face lost all color.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ve made a hobby out of it.”
“I’m not here to humiliate you,” I continued. “But you have a choice.”
I showed him everything.
His world collapsed quietly.
I changed the locks. I reclaimed the cabin.
Two months later, he moved out.
A year has passed.
The cabin is mine again. Whole and quiet. The kind of quiet that hums in your chest like safety.
One evening, I burned the notebook page by page.
They curled and cracked, the ink bubbling, the paper blackening before collapsing into ash.
Sometimes, when I drive up that dirt lane, I still pause at the bend in the road and remember the version of me who used to feel thin, worn out, and easily breakable.
She’s gone now.
What remains is someone softer, but not weaker.
And now and then, when I sit on that porch and watch the trees, I hear my mother’s voice again.
“You did the right thing.”
I believe her.
And I’m finally home.
