My son called another man Dad on speakerphone.
It was a Tuesday evening, almost 9 p.m. I was washing the dishes, my phone was charging in the living room. My wife Emma was putting our eight-year-old, Liam, to bed.
I heard my phone start ringing. Then it stopped. Then it rang again. Short, impatient rings.
Emma called out from the hallway:
“Daniel, your phone is buzzing non-stop, can you take it?”
I wiped my hands and went to the living room. Screen: “Unknown number”. I pressed decline. A second later, the same number called again.
Before I could react, Liam ran out of his room, grabbed my phone from the table and said:
“Dad, I’ll answer!”
He hit speakerphone, cheerful:
“Hi, it’s Liam!”
A male voice, about my age, calm, confident:
“Hey, buddy. Is your mom home? Can you give the phone to your mom or to your dad?”
Liam answered without a pause:
“My mom is here. My dad is at work. Who is this?”
I was standing two meters away.
Emma froze in the doorway of Liam’s room, toothbrush in her hand. She went almost white.
The man on the phone laughed softly:
“It’s Mark. Remember? From the lake house. Put your mom on, please.”
Liam looked at Emma:
“Mom, it’s Mark. From the lake house. He thinks Dad is at work.”
He said it спокойно, как факт. Like this was normal.
I reached out and took the phone from his hand.
“This is his dad,” I said. “Real one.”
Silence on the line. Two seconds. Three.
Then the man’s voice changed, became dry, official:
“Oh. Sorry. Wrong number.”
Call ended.
Liam looked confused.
“Why did he hang up? Did I say something wrong?”
Emma finally moved.
“Liam, go brush your teeth. Now,” she said.
Her voice was too high, too fast.
He shrugged and went to the bathroom. I heard the tap running. Toothbrush against the sink.
I put the phone on the table.
“Who is Mark,” I asked, “and what lake house?”
Emma sat down on the arm of the sofa without looking at me.
“It’s… from my work. We had a team building last year. You know this.”
I did. There had been some company retreat by a lake. Two days. She’d come back tired and excited, with dozens of photos of nature and group selfies. I hadn’t paid attention to names.
“Why does our son think I’m at work at nine p.m.,” I asked, “while I’m standing in front of him?”
She swallowed.
“Daniel, you’re overreacting. It’s just a mix-up. Liam doesn’t always—”
“Who does he call Dad when I’m not here?”
She looked up then. I saw the answer before she opened her mouth.
“Sometimes,” she said slowly, “when we visit the lake house on weekends, I… I didn’t correct him right away. He called Mark ‘Dad’ once as a joke. Everyone laughed. It became… a thing.”
I stared at her.
“What weekends?”
She closed her eyes for a second.
“You were at your mother’s, doing repairs. Remember? And then that training in Chicago. And the audit in March. I told you I’d be at my sister’s with Liam. We went to the lake instead.”
I tried to count. That was at least four weekends. Maybe five.
“Did you sleep with him?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away. Teeth pressed into her lower lip. Fingers twisting the hem of her sweater.
“Yes,” she said.
In the bathroom, water stopped. Liam hummed something from a cartoon.
“How long?”
“Almost a year,” she said. “Since that first retreat.”
She said it without drama, just putting a date on the table.
I looked at the phone. Call log: the same number had been trying to reach me for three days. I hadn’t noticed. Spam, I’d thought.
“Why is he calling me?” I asked.
“Because I told him it’s over,” she said. “On Sunday. He said he wanted to talk to you. Man to man. I didn’t give him your number. I guess he found it through work.”
The bathroom door opened. Liam came in, hair messy, pajamas too short at the ankles.
“Dad, can you tuck me in?” he asked.
His timing was precise, like he’d rehearsed it all his life.
I looked at Emma. She was staring at the floor.
I went into his room. Same posters, same nightlight in the shape of a rocket. Same dinosaur toy on the pillow.
He climbed into bed, turned on his side, held the dinosaur to his chest.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is that man your friend?”
“No,” I said. “He’s not my friend.”
Liam thought for a second.
“Mom cries when she comes back from the lake,” he said quietly. “I thought it’s because she misses you.”
He yawned, then added:
“Are we still going to the lake in summer?”
I tucked the blanket around him.
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll see.”
He nodded, satisfied with that answer, and closed his eyes. Out in the hallway, I heard Emma moving around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards without purpose.
I sat on the edge of Liam’s bed until his breathing became slow and even.
Then I went back to the living room, picked up my phone and saved the unknown number under a new contact: “Mark – lake”.
I didn’t call him back.
I told Emma we’d talk tomorrow, after work, at a café near the office. Public place. Neutral table. No raised voices.
She agreed.
That night I slept on the couch. At 3:17 a.m., the screen lit up once with a message from the unsaved number. I didn’t open it.
In the morning, I packed a small bag and took it to the car before Liam woke up.
He came into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.
“Dad, are you taking me to school today?”
“Yes,” I said.
“And after school?”
“After school,” I answered, “I’ll pick you up. We’ll go get ice cream. Mom will be a bit late.”
He nodded and reached for his cereal. Routine won.
At the café later, Emma asked if everything was over between us.
I told her that for now, nothing was over and nothing was fixed. It was just written down. Names, dates, lake house, weekends. A year.
Then I went back to work, answered emails, joined meetings, approved reports.
When my phone rang again in the afternoon from the same number, I declined the call and turned the sound off.
The contact “Mark – lake” stayed in my phone.
I still haven’t deleted it.
