I nodded slowly.
“That’s what I thought.”
Diego lowered his voice.
“Let’s talk at home.”
I laughed.
“You don’t live there anymore.”
“I can come back.”
“No.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Laura, those are my children.”
I stepped closer.
The parking lot wind lifted my hair.
For the first time in weeks, I did not feel like a discarded wife.
I felt like a mother.
“You called them another man’s children before you knew they had heartbeats. Do not use them now as a key to the door you slammed behind you.”
He went pale.
Then I turned and walked to my car.
That evening, I called a lawyer.
Her name was Valeria Montes.
She was recommended by a woman from my old office who had once divorced a man so politely dangerous that even her dog had needed therapy.
Valeria listened without interrupting.
The vasectomy.
The pregnancy.
