Mom smirked. “He loves her, not you. Let him go—with the house and the money.”
I signed the divorce papers.
“He can have her,” I said. “But the house and the money are mine.”
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My mother didn’t even blink when she told me to hand over my husband. She just sliced her steak, looked me in the eye, and said, “Valerie, be reasonable.”
“Brenda is carrying his child. She needs him more than you do.”
I froze.
The silver fork in my hand felt suddenly heavy, like a lead weight. The air in my parents’ dining room—usually scented with my mother’s expensive lavender potpourri—now smelled suffocatingly like roast beef and betrayal. I looked around the table.
My father was staring at his wine glass, refusing to meet my eyes. My sister, Brenda, was glowing—her hand resting protectively over a slight bump in her belly that I hadn’t noticed until ten seconds ago. And Greg—my husband of ten years, the man who had kissed me goodbye this morning and told me he loved me—was holding Brenda’s other hand.
“Excuse me?” I whispered. My voice sounded small. Pathetic.
It was the voice of the little girl who used to apologize for existing in this house. Greg finally looked at me. His eyes weren’t filled with guilt.
They were filled with defiance. “Valerie, please don’t make a scene,” he said, condescending—like someone soothing a child on the verge of a tantrum. “We didn’t want to tell you like this, but we couldn’t hide it anymore.”
“Brenda is four months along.
We are in love.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Four months?” My tongue was thick. “You’ve been sleeping with my sister for four months?
Longer?”
Brenda chimed in. She smirked—a tiny, cruel curl of her lips that I knew too well. “Whatever, Vel.
The timeline doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are a family now. A real family.” Her gaze sharpened.
“Something you obviously couldn’t give him.”
That stung. It was a direct shot at our fertility struggles. Years of negative tests.
Nights I cried into Greg’s shirt while he murmured that it didn’t matter, that we were enough. It had all been a lie. I looked at my mother—Joyce.
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