My other three children were already fighting over what to watch on television.
I curled beneath a blanket and tried not to imagine what was happening three towns away.
Ryan at the altar.
Lina walking toward him in white.
My parents smiling.
Relatives taking photographs.
Everyone celebrating their “new beginning.”
As if beginnings didn’t sometimes require destroying something that already existed.
Ryan and I had been married for eleven years.Pregnancy & Maternity
We had four children.
And when our marriage ended, I was pregnant with our fifth.
I found out about Lina by accident.
I came home early one afternoon carrying groceries.
Ryan was in the kitchen.
He didn’t hear me come in.
He was on the phone.
His voice was soft.
Affectionate.
“Honey, I love you too.”
I stopped in the hallway.
“I’ll see you at our usual hotel.”
The grocery bag slipped against my wrist.
I heard him laugh.
Then:
“I’ll make something up for her. She believes everything I say like a complete idiot.”
A jar of pasta sauce fell from my bag.
It shattered.
Ryan turned.
For half a second, neither of us moved.
Red sauce spread slowly across the tile.
He stared at it.
Then at me.
“Annie.”
“Who are you talking to?”
His face changed.
“Annie—”
“Who?”
He exhaled.
And somehow, that was worse than watching him scramble for a lie.
“Lina.”
My mind refused to understand the name.
“My Lina?”
He said nothing.
“My sister?”Family Law
“Yes.”
I put one hand over my pregnant stomach.
“How long?”
Ryan sat down.
“We didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I still hate that sentence.
People say it as if betrayal is weather.
