I stared at him.
“How long?”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Almost a year.”
“We didn’t mean for it to happen.”
I was pregnant with our fifth child, with four children upstairs, and almost a year of Ryan’s lies suddenly had one name attached to it.
Lina.
I filed for divorce.
Ryan moved out.
Lina stopped calling me.
And somehow, I became the one everyone expected to act graceful about it.
I was pregnant with our fifth child, with four children upstairs.
My father said, “You can’t force a man to stay where he isn’t happy.”
My mother kept reminding me Lina was still my sister.
Then I lost the baby.
There was no dramatic scene.
No doctor blaming stress.
No tidy explanation that made the timing any easier to accept.
“You can’t force a man to stay where he isn’t happy.”
One day I was still carrying my child.
Then I wasn’t.
I left the hospital with empty arms and four children asking when the baby would come home.
Ryan cried when I told him.
He said, “I’m so sorry.”
I hung up.
I left the hospital with empty arms and four children asking when the baby would come home.
Three weeks later, he and Lina announced their engagement.
That was when I stopped expecting decency from either of them.
Now, months later, I was back on the couch with my kids, trying not to think about the wedding happening without me.
Three weeks later, he and Lina announced their engagement.
Then my phone rang.
Nora, one of the only relatives who had never told me to “move on.”
