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The day I found out my husband had a secret child, my own brother threw me out of the house.
My parents came rushing over, but only to sign the papers that sent me out of the marriage with nothing.
My best friend of fifteen years stood there rocking the child in her arms, cooing at him.
Watching them all line up behind my husband, my eyes went hot and red.
"You knew? All along?"
They nodded, every one of them.
"We won't stop you from divorcing. But we're all siding with Godfrey James."
"From now on, our lives are with him."
...
When I didn't leave, they started shooing me out.
"Everything was fine. Why did you have to go digging into all this?"
"Now look. You've blown the whole thing apart, and you're the only one who loses."
There was something like a branding iron lodged in my throat, so hot I could barely open my mouth.
"I'm your real daughter. Your real sister!"
"Godfrey and I are getting divorced. What does he have to do with any of you anymore?"
Instead of answering, my parents reached over and pulled forward a timid-looking woman.
Vanessa Perez.
The poor student I'd once sponsored. Even the job that kept her in New York, I'd arranged that too.
"Vanessa is the daughter we lost."
There wasn't a trace of warmth in my mother's voice.
"Vanessa is more thoughtful than you. More sensible."
"She and Godfrey have a child together, so Godfrey will always be our son-in-law, and your brother's brother-in-law."
I turned to Vanessa, unable to believe it.
"I put you through school so you could learn how to be the other woman?"
She stood there, meek and fragile, twisting the hem of her shirt.
"Sis, back then, you and Godfrey were fighting. You'd even said you were breaking up."
"So I'm not the other woman."
The twisted logic turned my stomach.
I turned my head and looked at my best friend of fifteen years.
"And you?"
She hooked her arm cozily through Vanessa's.
"Vanessa and I just click better. You've got so many friends anyway. You won't miss one."
The shock nearly stopped my breath. I stood frozen where I was.
"Enough. Today is the boy's fourth birthday party. Don't stand there being an eyesore."
My brother waved his hand, impatient, like he was shooing away something dirty.
Four years old.
Godfrey and I had only been married for three.
The child in my friend's arms turned to my parents and called out, "Grandpa, Grandma, my first three birthdays."
"You gave me lots and lots of presents. What are you getting me this year?"
My parents' faces softened at once, and they crowded over, laughing, to fuss over him.
The child turned again, this time to my brother and my friend.
"Uncle, Auntie, your fourth present has to be really good too, or I'll be mad!"
So they hadn't just known.
They'd known from the very beginning.
Watching every one of them cluster tight around Godfrey and Vanessa, I couldn't hold the tears back anymore.
Before the wedding, Godfrey and I had come close to breaking up more than once, and every time, it was they who'd talked us back together.
The first time, Godfrey went a whole month without answering my messages, and it was my brother who stepped in to explain, said he'd dragged Godfrey off to some closed retreat in the mountains to study.
The second time, Godfrey took the down payment for our marital home and put it into an investment without asking me, and lost every cent. That time it was my parents who stood up and said they were the ones who'd pushed him into it, that the fault was theirs.
The third time, Godfrey swapped out my favorite wedding dress without telling me, and it was my best friend who came running in tears, saying she'd dirtied the dress by accident and Godfrey was only taking the blame for her.
I couldn't hold it in any longer, and the question broke out of me.
"If you knew about Vanessa and him from the very start!"
"Why did you go to such lengths to push me into marrying him?"
Godfrey came to stand in front of me, his expression gentle.
"Jemima Fox, don't blame them. I'm the one who insisted on marrying you."
"Ten years together, and you're the only wife I'll ever claim."
"Everything I neglected back then was because of Vanessa's pregnancy, so your dad and the others helped me—"
"Vanessa and the child were both an accident."
My hand flew up to slap him.
But my brother caught it midair.
His brows drew tight.
"You've got a problem, then solve the problem. Don't put on this fishwife act—"
He shoved me, and I stumbled back a step.
The pain in my chest was almost enough to stop it beating.
I looked at the faces in front of me, all so familiar and so foreign.
"Fine. Since you've all chosen Vanessa, chosen him."
"Then from now on, none of you come looking for me again."
I turned to go, and behind me my parents' voices rose.
"Wait!"
"Hand over the money you saved before the marriage before you leave."
