Then finally I found the blue folder Claire organized so obsessively months ago.
I remembered laughing at her back then while she sat at the kitchen table labeling everything with ridiculous seriousness, writing our baby’s name across documents like she was already building a life around someone we hadn’t even met yet.
Now my hands barely worked.
When I looked back at her, Claire was watching me quietly with an expression that made my stomach twist.
Not anger.
Not suspicion.
Something heavier.
Like she already knew exactly what I had thought when I walked through the door.
“Did you think I was with someone?” she asked softly.
The question landed gently.
That somehow made it worse.
I opened my mouth, but shame closed my throat before words could come out.
Outside, somewhere far below our apartment building, a motorcycle passed through the empty Chicago street with a low metallic growl.
Claire turned slightly toward the sound, then looked back at me again.
“I saw your face,” she whispered. “Before you touched me.”
God.
I couldn’t even look at her anymore.
The backward nightgown.
The wet sheets.
The unanswered calls.
All the ugly little comments my mother had planted inside my head over the past few months had surfaced instantly the second things looked strange.
Are you sure the timing isn’t weird?
Pregnancy changes women.
A paternity test protects everybody.
I had always dismissed those comments lightly instead of confronting her directly because fighting with my mother felt exhausting.
For illustrative purposes only
Now that weakness sat between my wife and me like a living thing.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said weakly.
But we both knew that wasn’t true.
