“That isn’t quite the same thing.”
“No,” I admitted. “It isn’t.”
He did not press me.
He explained that he would prepare the initial divorce filing in the morning and that we could discuss a careful arrangement for communication about the pregnancy.
“I don’t want to make decisions about the baby out of anger,” I said.
“That’s a good place to start,” Daniel replied. “You can set boundaries without deciding the rest of your child’s life tonight.”
I looked down at my stomach.
“I told him he wouldn’t be a father.”
“You were hurt, Claire.”
“I meant it when I said it.”
“You may have meant that you don’t want him near you right now,” Daniel said. “Those are not necessarily the same words.”
I had no answer.
After we hung up, I walked through the small house, opening curtains and switching on lamps until the rooms seemed less like a place I had abandoned and more like a place I might be able to inhabit again.
