Then she got pregnant.
Against all logic, she hoped this would wake him. Not because babies save marriages—they don’t—but because she believed even a selfish man might go quiet in the presence of something that innocent.
She cooked his favorite dinner. Lit candles. Placed the ultrasound envelope beside his plate.
He opened it. For one heartbeat, surprise softened him.
“A baby,” he said.
“A girl,” Evelyn whispered.
He set the photo down, took a bite of steak, and said, still chewing, “Hope she gets your looks, because my genes would be wasted on someone who’ll probably just grow up to be a housewife.”
That was it.
No hand on her stomach.
No question about names.
No we.
A week later she left an ultrasound appointment alone and saw his silver Mercedes outside a restaurant. Through the window she watched him feeding Chloe dessert, laughing, then reaching across the booth to rub slow circles over Chloe’s stomach with a tenderness he had denied his own wife for seven months.
Chloe was pregnant too.