I clenched my fists.
"Who do you think you are? You're an administrative assistant. You don't get to tell me to step aside."
"Administrative assistant?" She laughed out loud. "You really think that's what I am?"
"It doesn't matter what you are." I stared her down. "As long as I don't sign the divorce papers, you'll always be the dirty little secret. You and that child. Always."
Her smile froze for a split second.
Then something flickered behind her eyes, and she let out a derisive scoff.
"You're that confident? You went to the villa neighborhood the other day, didn't you?"
My heart skipped a beat.
"Relax." She waved her hand. "David doesn't know. I didn't tell him."
"I kept your secret for you." Her smile turned knowing. "After all, you're the big sister in this arrangement."
She set her coffee cup down and traced a finger along the rim.
"Speaking of which..."
She looked at me, and her gaze held a kind of cruel pity.
"It's such a shame, really. David told me your baby and Pete's birthdays were only six hours apart."
"Your child didn't make it. Mine is alive and thriving."
The corners of her mouth curled upward. Her tone was light, breezy, like she was commenting on the weather.
"Pete is smart, adorable, healthy. Even when he's being a little troublemaker, I can't bring myself to discipline him too hard. What can I say? I'm just lucky. God's been good to me."
She stood, picked up her purse, and walked over to where I sat. She leaned down, her lips close to my ear, and whispered a single sentence.
"You're a woman with no blessings."
She straightened up, and that gentle mask slid right back into place.
"But don't lose heart." She patted my shoulder. "Your blessings are still coming."
The click of her heels faded into the distance.
I sat there, motionless.
Six hours.
Only six hours apart.
The same day.
The same hospital...
General Memorial Hospital?
On the fourth night, Lucinda called. Her voice was shaking with anger.
"Ellie, your... your marriage certificate with David... it's fake."
I thought I'd heard her wrong.
"What... do you mean?"
"There's no marriage registration on file in the civil records system. But there is a divorce record. Two years ago, David forged your signature and filed for an uncontested divorce."
"Ellie, you two aren't husband and wife anymore."
The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor. A crack split across the screen.
Corinne's face flashed behind my eyes. The way she'd frozen when I threatened her with refusing to sign, and then that scoff. That knowing, contemptuous scoff.
She'd known all along.
She knew David had forged the divorce papers for her. She knew he'd been willing to dissolve our marriage just to be with her.
She'd been laughing at my audacity. Laughing at me, a housewife who thought a marriage certificate was enough to hold David, with no real power to fight back.
I was a clown, dancing around in someone else's marriage.
Convinced I could win, while everyone else watched and laughed.
The next morning, David got up at seven as usual, knotted his tie, and ate the breakfast I'd made.
"I might have a business dinner tonight. Don't wait up for me."
"Okay."
He walked to the door, pulled me into his arms, and pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead.
"Ellie, I know these past few days have been hard on you. I'll make it up to you. I promise."
I smiled and said nothing.
After he left, I found a receipt in the walk-in closet. A crumpled slip from the store.
Imported toys. Children's vitamins. Dinosaur crackers.
In the bottom drawer of his study desk, I found the statements for his second bank account.
A fixed monthly transfer of forty-five hundred dollars. Three years. Thirty-six months. A hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.
Recipient: Corinne Henson.
