I came home early from a business trip, hoping to surprise my husband. But instead of a warm embrace, I found him in the backyard, covered in sweat, digging a hole, and burying a large black egg. He brushed it off when I asked, refusing to explain. So I started digging on my own. What I uncovered made my heart pound.
I hadn’t slept in days. The business conference in Chicago had dragged on forever—slide after slide, coffee after coffee. By the third day, I was running on fumes and mentally checked out. Three years into marriage, and lately, Nathan and I felt more like coworkers than soulmates. He was always buried in his investment firm; I was flying around consulting with tech clients. We hadn’t had a real dinner together in over a month.
So when my final meeting ended two hours early, I shut my laptop without hesitation.
“You’re skipping the VP’s keynote?” my colleague Jenna raised an eyebrow as I zipped my bag.
“For once, yes. I need to go home and remember what my husband looks like.”
She smirked. “Rachel Adams choosing love over career? That’s new.”
“It’s overdue,” I said, checking my phone for the next flight. “If I hustle, I can catch the 6:15 back to Denver and surprise him.”
“Text me when you land,” Jenna said, half-joking. “Surprise visits aren’t always romantic. Sometimes people are hiding things.”
She had no idea how prophetic those words would turn out to be.
The sunset painted the Rockies in deep amber as I pulled into our driveway. Our house sat still and peaceful beneath a wash of gold, the porch light flickering on automatically as I stepped out of the car.
But something felt… off.
I unlocked the front door and was greeted by silence. The kind of silence that doesn’t feel calm—it feels staged.
“Nate?” I called softly, setting my bag by the stairs.
No answer.
The living room was a mess. Mail strewn across the table, including three envelopes marked URGENT. A half-full coffee mug sat abandoned on the kitchen counter, and a thin ring of dried coffee crusted the lip.
I frowned. Nathan was obsessive about order. This wasn’t like him.
Maybe he’s working in the office, I thought. But something tugged me toward the back door. A breeze stirred the curtains and carried in the scent of turned earth.
I stepped outside.
That’s when I saw him—standing in the middle of our vegetable garden, furiously digging between rows of tomato plants.
And beside him, half-buried in the dirt, was a massive black egg.
The thing was enormous—at least two feet tall—and glossy like obsidian. It glimmered under the porch light with an almost otherworldly sheen.
Nathan was drenched in sweat, sleeves rolled up, shovel moving in frantic bursts. He muttered something to himself—something about needing to dig deeper.
“Just a bit more… needs to be deep enough,” I heard him say.
My heart stopped.
“Nathan?”
He jerked like I’d slapped him. The shovel clattered to the side, striking something metallic in the dirt.
“Rachel?!” His voice cracked with panic. “Wh—what are you doing here?!”
I stepped toward the garden slowly. “I came home early. Thought I’d surprise you.”
He scrambled to block my view of the egg. “You weren’t supposed to be here yet.”
“Clearly. What is that?”
“It’s nothing.” His voice was clipped, defensive. “Seriously, Rachel. Go inside.”
“Nothing? You’re burying a glossy black… thing in our garden like a B-movie villain and want me to just pretend it’s fine?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“No, you’ll explain now.”
Nathan ran a hand through his hair, smearing dirt across his temple. He looked toward the street like he was afraid someone might be watching.
“Please. Just trust me on this. I’m handling it.”
“Handling what, Nate?” My voice rose. “Because from where I’m standing, you either need help—or you’re hiding something big.”
“I SAID I’M HANDLING IT!” His sudden shout startled both of us. We stared at each other in stunned silence.
“I don’t even know who you are right now,” I whispered. I turned and walked back inside.
I couldn’t sleep that night. I lay awake in the dark, listening to the couch creak beneath his shifting weight downstairs. Around 3 a.m., I heard the back door click open. I tiptoed to the window and watched as Nathan circled the garden like a security guard, checking the burial spot of the bizarre egg.
I had to know what he was hiding.
The moment he left for work the next morning, I grabbed a shovel and headed outside. My hands trembled as I stabbed the blade into the freshly turned dirt.
It took almost twenty minutes of digging, but eventually I struck something hard.
I unearthed the egg. Up close, it didn’t look natural at all. The surface wasn’t shell-like—it felt synthetic. Plastic.
I twisted the object gently and gasped as it split open down the middle—like a massive, hollow Easter egg.
Empty.
Nothing inside. Just more layers of black plastic.
“Rachel?”
I jumped, nearly dropping the thing. Mr. Yamato, our elderly neighbor, stood on the other side of the fence.
“I saw someone in your garden late last night,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah… just—gardening,” I stammered, awkwardly hiding the egg behind my back.
He raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but nodded and turned away.
I dragged the egg into the garage, wrapped it in a tarp, and shoved it behind the lawnmower. Then I sat on the concrete floor and tried to make sense of what was happening.
What was this thing?
Why was Nathan so frantic to bury it?
Was he hiding it from me, or someone else?
I drove to work in a daze. I needed some shred of sanity to pull me through the morning.
Then the radio cut in.
“—breaking news this morning, as local law enforcement cracks down on a massive fraud ring targeting antique collectors and upscale hobbyists. Authorities say fake artifacts—most notably black, egg-shaped plastic containers—were sold as ancient fertility relics. Victims paid thousands, sometimes tens of thousands…”
My foot slammed the brake as I pulled over, heart pounding.
I knew. I knew this had something to do with Nathan.
That night, I placed the egg on our kitchen table like a conversation starter from hell and waited.
When Nathan walked in, he froze at the sight.
His briefcase dropped to the floor.
“Rachel, I—”
“How much?” I asked.
He sank into a chair, face pale. “Fifteen thousand.”
I closed my eyes, sick to my stomach. “You spent fifteen thousand on a plastic egg.”
“I thought it was real,” he said miserably. “A guy at the firm introduced me to a dealer. Said it was an ancient Eastern artifact—a fertility egg from the Tang dynasty or something. He said it’d triple in value within a year.”
“And you didn’t think to—oh, I don’t know—GOOGLE IT?” My voice cracked.
He buried his face in his hands. “I wanted to surprise you. I thought I could flip it and take you on that Europe trip we always talk about.”
“You mean the trip we’ve been saving for? For three years? You used that money?”
“I just… I wanted to fix things. Your mom’s medical bills. The HVAC repairs. We’ve both been stressed. I thought if I pulled off this one big gesture…”
My anger softened—just a fraction. He looked so broken. So stupidly well-intentioned.
I sat beside him. “You thought burying it would help?”
“I panicked. When the news broke about the scam, I didn’t know what to do. I thought if you never found it, I could spare you the disappointment.”
I took his hand. “You idiot. I don’t care about Europe or antiques. I care about us. But you can’t keep shutting me out when things get hard.”
“I filed a police report this morning,” he said quietly. “I’m not the only one. They’re investigating the whole ring. I might be able to recover some of the money.”
“Well,” I said, leaning back. “At least we’ve got a great story.”
Nathan half-laughed, half-groaned. “Yeah. ‘That time I tried to fix our marriage with a fake egg.’”
“You know,” I smiled, “we could actually plant it. Bury it properly next to your tomatoes. Make it a monument to terrible decisions.”
“Or a reminder,” he said, squeezing my hand, “that trust matters more than any treasure.”
We sat there for a moment, quiet and close.
“I love you,” he said finally. “Even when I’m an idiot.”
“Lucky for you,” I said, “I’ve always had a soft spot for idiots.”
