“We’ve talked.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
Six months.
While I’d been planning his birthday.
While he’d been kissing me goodnight.
Vanessa turned toward him.
“You told me you were separating.”
Sam closed his eyes.
“I said things were complicated.”
“You said you were sleeping in separate rooms.”
I almost laughed.
“We sleep in the same bed.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You told me Rachel knew.”
“Can we discuss this privately?” Sam whispered.
“No,” I said.
“You’ve had six months for private conversations.”
Patricia stepped forward.
Then slowly wiped icing from her silver hair.
“Sam was unhappy. Vanessa understood him long before you came along.”
Vanessa turned sharply.
“Don’t pretend you’ve always wanted me around.”
Patricia blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“You spent 11 years telling me I wasn’t good enough for your son.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Vanessa’s voice shook.
“You criticized how I raised Lily. You called me selfish for working. You even told Sam I was a terrible mother.”Track Pregnancy
Patricia straightened.
“I was trying to help.”
“You made me miserable.”
Vanessa looked at Sam.
“And every time I asked him to defend me, he said you didn’t mean it.”
I watched my husband stare at the floor.
“That’s why you divorced?” I asked.
Vanessa nodded.
“I begged him to choose our marriage. He kept promising things would change.”
She touched one diamond earring.
“Then I left.”
I remembered our second date.
Sam had sat across from me, describing his divorce.
“Vanessa stopped loving me,” he’d said.
I’d reached across the table.
Held his hand.
Promised I would never abandon him.
Now I looked at Vanessa.
“He told me you walked away because you wanted someone better.”
Her eyes filled.
“He told everyone that.”
Patricia scoffed.
“Well, you did leave him.”
“After 11 years of being treated like an outsider.”
Vanessa turned back to Sam.
“When you called me six months ago, you said you’d changed.”
