Chapter 5

"How do you expect me to stay calm?" I shot back. "You're questioning me? Questioning the baby I carried?

"What am I to you? Some cheap tramp you can spit on whenever you feel like it?"

My voice stayed low, but each word cut like broken glass.

David's face went white. "Claire, I didn't. I never doubted you.

"It's my mom. She's the one making things up in her head."

He threw a hard look over his shoulder at Linda. "Mom, tell her. Tell Claire you were being paranoid."

Linda stiffened under David's glare. Her embarrassment twisted into fury.

She stepped out from behind him, chin lifted high. "What did I say that's so awful? I'm only speaking the truth. Who knows what you get up to out there? You work with men all day long.

"How is anyone supposed to believe you've been faithful? A healthy baby doesn't slip away for no reason. I say God himself couldn't stomach it. He took that fatherless child off your hands. He did you a favor."

SMACK. This slap landed harder than the first. I put my whole body behind it.

Linda hit the floor, hand pressed to her cheek, completely stunned.

David stood frozen. He never thought I would go that far.

When his brain caught up, he shouted at me. "Claire, have you lost your mind?" He moved toward me, ready to shove me back.

I met his eyes with a cold stare. "David, go ahead. I want you to try."

That look stopped him cold. Something in my eyes, something flat and fearless, made him freeze where he stood.

Linda sat on the floor, wailing and beating her fists against the ground. "She's trying to kill me! This witch wants me dead.

"David, look at the woman you married! She's walking all over your own mother."

David's whole body trembled with rage. He pointed a shaking finger at me. "Claire, you apologize to my mom. Right now."

I laughed. The sound came out broken, and tears slid down my cheeks. "Apologize? David, are you actually serious right now?

"You heard what came out of her mouth. She dragged me through the mud. She dragged our baby through the mud.

"And you want me to apologize to her? What is wrong with you?"

David's mouth opened and closed. His eyes slid away from mine, full of shame. "Well... My mom says things when she's upset, that's all."

"Upset?" I stepped closer, my voice turning to ice. "And what about you? Were you upset, too, when you said all that?

"'Mom, enough with the act.'" I threw his own words back at him, every syllable coated in disgust. "That was you, wasn't it?

"An act? What kind of performance are the two of you putting on? Some mother-son drama for me to watch?

"While I sit here falling apart, drowning in your fake kindness and all your lies?

"David. You're something else."

His face cycled from red to pale and back again. All his masks fell away. He exploded. "Yeah, I said it! You happy now?

"I said it for you! If I hadn't played along, would my mother have let up for one second?

"If I didn't let her have her little performance, would this house know a single moment of peace?

"I'm out there busting my ass all day, and I walk through that door to this. You think I've got it easy?"

He stood there playing the martyr. What a joke.

"For me?" My voice dripped with contempt. "So, teaming up with your mother to ask if my baby was even yours, that's doing something for me?

"David, can you look me in the eye and swear you never doubted me? Not once?"

I held his gaze. I didn't blink.

He opened his mouth. The word wouldn't come.

The way he looked away. The way he hesitated. That was enough of an answer.

Something inside me went cold and still. He did doubt me all along.

He said he loved me and trusted me. But underneath it all, he carried the ugliest suspicions.

He watched grief eat me alive, day after day. He watched his mother tear me down until I was a hollow shell.

And he never once stood up for me. Maybe, in his mind, I had it coming.

Because I was damaged goods. Because that baby didn't belong to him.

I saw it all crystal clear. No more doubts. No more hoping for something that was never there.

I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, I felt nothing but cold.

"David," I said, my voice perfectly steady. "I want a divorce."

I turned and walked to the bedroom. I didn't look back.

Behind me, David's shocked shout rang out, and Linda let out a cold, satisfied laugh.

I shut the bedroom door and locked it. Their noise stayed on the other side.