I turned my wedding band once with my thumb. Then I saved every single photo. Evidence for the dissolution.
That afternoon, I used shopping as an excuse and headed to the mall Elena liked to frequent.
It didn't take long. She was in a café, chatting with a girlfriend.
I sat down in a corner nearby and listened.
"Sunny, are you really sure about this? He's a married man." Her friend sounded worried.
"So what? He doesn't love her. The only reason he's still married to her is her family's money." Elena waved it off. "He told me once I give him a son, he'll find an excuse to leave her."
"But what if he's stringing you along?"
"He's not. Look how good he is to me." Elena held up her hand to show off. "This ring? Two hundred thousand. He bought me an apartment, too. You think a man spends that kind of money if he's not serious?"
Her friend still looked uneasy. "But if his wife finds out…"
"So what if she does?" Elena rubbed her belly, triumphant. "I'm carrying his son. That's the biggest card I could possibly hold. Men want their bloodline. He's not going to throw me and his child away."
"And that old hag? Three years married and she couldn't pop out a single kid. I got pregnant and it's a boy. Tell me, who's he going to pick?"
Old hag. The words nearly made me lose it right there.
Twenty-eight. I was twenty-eight and she was calling me an old hag?
I forced the rage down and kept listening. My thumb found my wedding band again, turning it slow.
"He promised me. Once the baby's born, he'll go public with us and make me his wife." Elena's face was glowing with the fantasy. "I'll be the lady of the house. Never have to put up with anyone's looks again."
"Does Adriana Moretti even know you exist?"
The sound of my name in this woman's friend's mouth, spoken so casually in a café where anyone with the wrong ears could be sitting. I didn't move. I didn't breathe.
"Probably not. Damian plays the perfect husband at home. Never slips up." Elena laughed, pleased with herself. Her fingernails tapped twice against her coffee cup. "But even if she did find out, so what? I have a son. She doesn't. I win."
Enough.
I couldn't listen to another word. I stood up and walked out of the café.
Outside, the afternoon sun hit me and the street noise of the territory rushed back in. Two of our neighborhood soldiers were leaning against a wall half a block down, unaware I was there, talking about nothing. The whole world was going on as if nothing had cracked underneath it.
I called my father.
"Dad. It's time."
