Chapter2

Upstairs, I hid the ultrasound printout in the lining of my suitcase.

Twelve weeks pregnant. Two babies. Three prenatal appointments attended alone.

Ethan didn’t know I had vomited until my throat bled. He did not know I woke up with leg cramps and pressed my own thumbs into the muscle until the pain released. He did not know I took the bus when I could not afford gas.

Soon, he wouldn’t need to know.

Tomorrow I would sign.

The day after that, I would move.

Then my life would belong to me again.

Ethan chose a private conference room off the lobby of Walsh Development’s headquarters.

Attorney Baker sat beside him with two copies of the agreement and a neat row of signature tabs. Ethan wore a charcoal suit and the Patek Philippe watch I once saw him buy without asking the price.

I wore a loose navy dress that hid my stomach.

Baker walked me through the terms, reminding me twice that she represented Ethan, not me, and that I had the right to have my own attorney review them. I had memorized them the night before, but I listened anyway. I wanted no surprises between me and $13.2 million.

“Do you want any changes?” Ethan asked.

“No.”

Attorney Baker turned the agreement toward me and offered a pen.

The pen tip touched the paper.

Ethan put his hand over the signature line.

My pulse jumped. There it was: the exact thing I had feared.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I looked at his hand. Years ago, on a snowy night, he had tucked my fingers into his coat pocket because my gloves were too thin. I had believed tenderness like that could survive anything.

It had not survived convenience.

“I’m sure.”

He moved his hand.

I signed Claire Morgan in firm, even letters.

Relief loosened something inside me. Not something snapping. A knot coming undone.

Ethan signed next.

Attorney Baker collected the papers. “We’ll file today. The first transfer is due when the judgment is entered, then the next two on the dates listed here.”

“Good,” I said.

Ethan watched me take one sip of coffee and stand.

“The money will come on schedule,” he said.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

At the door, I turned back. “I’m moving my clothes and personal things today. Everything else stays.”

He nodded.

Outside, an early spring wind carried the scent of wet soil from the planters along the sidewalk. I filled my lungs.

Freedom smelled clean.

Maya called before I reached the corner.

“Signed?”

“Signed.”

“Perfect. I found you an apartment. Two bedrooms, elevator building, twelve minutes from St. Anne’s Women’s Hospital. You can get the keys this afternoon.”

“When did you sleep?”

“I’ll sleep after you’re out of that mausoleum.”

Back at the house, my life fit into two suitcases. One held clothes. The other held toiletries, documents, books, and the ultrasound printout.

Thirty months of marriage weighed less than the luggage I had taken on our honeymoon.

I paused at the gallery wall. Wedding pictures. Vacation pictures. A dozen photographs of me smiling beside a man who had slowly removed himself from my life while leaving me responsible for his home.

I considered taking our wedding portrait down.

Then I left it.

He could keep it as a receipt.

The doorbell rang before Maya arrived.

Lila stood on the front step in a pale pink coat, holding a gift box. Her hair fell in glossy waves, and her expression had been rehearsed down to the sympathetic tilt of her mouth.

“Claire. I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Did you?”

Her gaze slipped past me to the suitcases. Satisfaction flashed before she hid it.

I let her in because I wanted to hear what she had come to collect.

She set the box on the coffee table. “It’s a silk scarf. I thought—”

“You should keep it.”

Lila sat, hands folded in her lap. “I know you probably hate me.”

“I don’t.”

That threw her off.

“You don’t have to pretend you’re fine.”

“I’m not pretending. If you came to watch me cry, you made the trip for nothing.”

Her soft expression tightened.

“I never meant to hurt you,” she said. “Ethan and I are in love.”

“And because of that love, my $480 a month became $13.2 million. You’re practically my financial adviser.”

The sympathy disappeared from her face.

I stood. “Take the scarf. The door is behind you.”

At the threshold, she spun around.

“Money doesn’t mean you won. Ethan’s heart belongs to me. You’re leaving with nothing that matters.”

I leaned against the open door.

“How much do you think his heart is worth?”

“What?”

“I ran the numbers. About $480 a month. If you want it, it’s yours.”

She left so quickly her heel slipped on the bottom step.

I threw the unopened gift into the trash.

Maya arrived at three in a dented Subaru and swore for a full minute when she saw the size of the house.

“You cleaned this place by yourself?”

“And paid part of the heating bill.”

“I hope his next house eats him.”

My new apartment was small, bright, and warm. A grocery store stood across the street. The hospital was one bus ride away.

The second bedroom was empty except for a ceiling fan and two rectangles of afternoon sun on the floor.

Maya stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. “Cribs go here.”

“They’re the size of peaches. We have time.”

“You have twins. Time moves twice as fast.”

She opened the closet, eyeballed it, and announced that it needed shelves. Then she made a list on the back of a takeout menu: two cribs, one changing table, blackout curtains, bottles, car seats, and something called a twin nursing pillow that sounded like specialized furniture.

I watched her planning a future she had accepted without hesitation.

Ethan had decided he wanted me gone and put a price on my exit. Maya had heard there were children and found them a room.

The contrast hurt, but it also clarified everything.

After we unpacked, Maya handed me an envelope. Inside was a debit card.

“There’s sixty-eight thousand dollars in the account,” she said. “Use it until the first transfer clears.”

“Maya—”

“Don’t. You can pay me back after your ex remembers how contracts work.”

For the first time that day, my eyes burned.

“When the money comes, I’m buying you the best dinner in Crestmont.”

“Buy yourself groceries with actual protein. That’ll be thanks enough.”

That night, Ethan texted.

The filing is complete. If you need anything during the transition, let me know.

It read like an email from HR.

I answered, Okay.

Then I turned off my phone and lay in the unfamiliar bedroom with one hand over my stomach.

“We’re free,” I whispered to the twins. “The three of us will be fine.”

I slept without waking once.

It was the first good night’s sleep I’d had in two and a half years.

The first $4.4 million arrived when the divorce judgment was entered.

I checked the banking app three times, then went downstairs and bought two racks of ribs, fresh vegetables, and a carton of strawberries that cost nine dollars.

Maya would have called the strawberries highway robbery. I bought them anyway.

For thirty months, ribs had been a luxury. That night I glazed them with brown sugar and mustard and ate until the babies seemed satisfied.

Baker called before I finished.

“Ms. Morgan, Mr. Walsh would like to discuss the remaining payment schedule.”

I put down my fork.