The comment section filled up with likes from their mutual friends.
I shut off my phone.
Not a single ripple in my chest.
She was showing off. Provoking me.
She couldn't wait to take my place.
So what?
Her today and my yesterday were the same story.
Tom Henson was a romantic man.
A perfect score in dating.
A perfect score in proposing.
But his romance couldn't hold up the weight of being a father.
After the pregnancy and the birth, I'd become a mother overnight, whether I was ready or not.
And Tom was still the same Tom.
There was an invisible wall between us.
On the far side of it, he was still dazzling.
Still living his life of wine and moonlight.
On my side, I was bleeding, leaking urine, constipated, my milk soaking through.
I was buried under a baby and everything that came out of one.
And he saw none of it.
The entire recovery month, Tom came home only four times.
The first time, he was angry.
The second time, he frowned.
The third time, he was disgusted.
The fourth time, he was calm. He didn't even spare me a glance.
He didn't come into the room either.
All I heard was the clatter of him gathering his things.
I was counting the days.
Counting down to the end of my recovery month.
Counting down to when I could leave the house.
Counting down to when I could leave him for good.
We never had a single screaming fight.
Beneath that calm was the sound of my love shattering to pieces.
Every day, I still nursed, ate, soaked in my medicinal baths, rocked the baby to sleep, bled, leaked.
Now and then I'd scroll my social media feed, and all I saw was Elena Fox's itinerary, stop after stop.
Tom was in every single post.
So was everyone in Tom's circle.
They bantered like old friends, as if they'd completely forgotten there was a woman tucked away in a corner who had just given birth to Tom's child.
I was like an old thing left to gather dust.
During that whole month, the only person who truly cared about me was my mother.
She texted me every day.
I set the phone down, and the tears slid silently down my face.
My mother-in-law toyed with me on purpose, because she looked down on me.
But Tom, all he had to do was ask one more question and he'd have known exactly what I was going through.
He stayed silent the whole time.
Not just silent. He flew all over the country with Elena Fox, holding exhibitions, giving talks, raking in money.
But of all that money, the only thing I saw was the thirty thousand dollars he wired me during the recovery month. Not another cent.
Even the home we lived in now had been bought by my parents years ago.
Right as my recovery month was wrapping up, Tom landed another top prize at the National Art Exhibition.
His social media feed overflowed with flowers and applause.
And the woman standing beside him, soaking up the praise, was still Elena.
She was just like the version of me from a few years ago.
Eyes shining, eyes that saw nothing but Tom.
By now, Tom didn't even bother sharing his joy with me anymore.
Our text thread was pitiful, barely a handful of messages.
The last one was from two weeks earlier, when he'd told me his mother had gone back home.
And it hit me then. His mother had been right about one thing.
Thank God Tom and I had never made it official.
The day my recovery month ended, the weather was beautiful.
I dismissed the postpartum nurse.
I packed only the essentials for the flight, formula, diapers, that kind of thing.
As for the baby's dirty laundry, the leftover food, the loaded diaper bags no one had thrown out yet.
I left every bit of it exactly where it was.
Tom would have to see it eventually.
He needed to see that "father" wasn't just a title.
It was a responsibility.
And underneath that responsibility lay a floor's worth of mess and grime.
I pushed the stroller, documents in hand, straight to the real estate agency.
"I'm widowed."
The moment I said it to the agent, plain and calm, the wire pulled tight inside me finally went slack.
Then I wheeled the stroller out and headed straight for the airport.
Southport, a thousand miles away. That was my real home.
A week later, Tom called.
"Where did you go?"
"The place reeks like the septic tank exploded!"
"What the hell has gotten into you?!"
I answered him flatly.
"Tom, I nearly died giving birth."
"And you're yelling at me about taking out the trash? Are you actually this clueless, or just playing dumb?"
Another day passed, and he was blowing up my phone.
"Margaret!! How could you sell the house?"
