“I know.”
“Do you?” Her voice trembled for the first time. “Because I have spent two and a half years protecting them from instability. I won’t let you arrive with promises and disappear when the novelty fades.”
“I won’t disappear.”
“You disappeared before they were born.”
“I disappeared from you,” I said. “Not from them. I didn’t know they existed.”
“But you knew I was pregnant.”
The words stopped me.
I stared at her.
“I suspected,” I admitted. “You were trying to tell me something. I was too busy to listen.”
“And after I left?”
“I thought you wanted the divorce.”
“I did want the divorce.”
The honesty startled me.
“But not because I stopped loving you,” she continued. “I wanted a divorce because I realized I was married to a man who had no room in his life for me. I had begged you to come to one appointment. One. You sent someone else.”
