I stared at Sophie.
“You knew?”
She nodded.
“Not immediately. I found out shortly before you asked for the divorce.”
Every memory from those last few weeks came flooding back.
Her exhaustion.
Her silence.
For illustrative purposes only
The mornings when she said she had appointments for work.
I had mistaken fear for distance.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because you were already drowning.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“No,” she whispered. “But I heard you talking to your brother one night.”
My chest tightened.
“What did you hear?”
“You said you couldn’t survive losing another child. You said our marriage had become nothing but grief.”
I remembered that conversation.
I had been angry, exhausted, and saying things I never meant for Sophie to hear.
She had believed them anyway.
“So when you asked for a divorce,” she continued, “I thought maybe letting you go was the last kind thing I could do.”
