I had always let Rocco say what he wanted, for Simone's sake. I had swallowed his contempt at Sunday dinners, smiled through his pointed silences, pretended not to notice when he turned his back to me in rooms full of people who were watching to see if I would break.
But I could speak for myself now.
I pressed my thumb against the inside of my wedding ring. Turned it. One slow, deliberate rotation.
Then I typed a response and sent it through the same network that had carried Silvana's triumph to every wife, mistress, and associate in three boroughs:
Don't worry. That's going to happen soon.
I chose two images. The first was my pregnancy ultrasound, the grainy black-and-white photograph of the child that had been alive inside me that morning. The second was the certificate from the clinic. The document that confirmed what I had done. What I had chosen. What could not be undone.
I sent them together, with four words underneath:
Finally letting go.