“At first, I told him to speak to you,” Elise said. “But he kept calling. He said you made him feel like a stranger.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
“And the ring?”
She looked down.
“It isn’t real.”
Mark had wanted a performance.
He found someone willing to stand onstage.
“Then why wear it?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because he said you would only understand if you thought you had lost him.”
The cruelty was so small and absurd that for a moment I felt nothing.
Then everything.
“I was in labor,” I said.
Elise’s face crumpled.
“I didn’t know he threw you out.”
“But you knew I had given birth. And you came anyway.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
There was no comfort in her honesty.
