He simply set his cup on the table and stared at me like I had brought something filthy into our home.
“That’s impossible.”
“What do you mean, impossible?”
Diego gave a cold laugh.
“I had a vasectomy two months ago, Laura. I’m not stupid.”
That word hit me like a slap.
Stupid.
That was what the man I had loved for eight years called me.
The same man who had said the surgery was “for us,” because money was tight, because we could “decide later.”
I reminded him the doctor had said it was not immediate.
That follow-up testing was necessary.
That pregnancy could still happen.
But Diego had already stopped listening.
His verdict was already written across his face.
“Who is he?” he asked.
I froze.
“What?”
“The father. Tell me who he is.”
I felt sick.
Because of him.
That night, he packed a suitcase.
Not many clothes.
Just enough to let me know another place was already waiting.
“I’m going to Paola,” he said, without shame.
Paola.
His coworker.
The woman who used to text me for recipes.
The woman who once told me, “Lauri, your marriage is so beautiful.”
The woman who had apparently been waiting for a chance to take my place.
The next day, my mother-in-law arrived with two black bags.
Not to comfort me.
To collect Diego’s belongings.
“How shameful, Laura,” she said, looking at my stomach as if it were already evidence against me. “Diego didn’t deserve this.”
“I didn’t cheat on him.”
She gave me a pitying smile.
“They all say that.”
