She wore a loose sweater, but the curve of her pregnancy was unmistakable.
Michael stopped near the elevator and kissed her.
Not a polite kiss.
Not a confused moment that could be explained away.
He touched her face with both hands and kissed her with the tenderness he had once reserved for me.
The room seemed to tilt.
“Who is she?” I whispered.
Evelyn opened a visitor record.
“Her name is Lauren. Your husband has been signing her into the hospital as his fiancée.”
The word struck harder than the image.
Fiancée.
I was still his wife.
“How far along is she?”
“Approximately twenty-three weeks, according to something Patricia overheard.”
Twenty-three weeks.
I counted backward automatically.
While I had been cooking Michael’s birthday dinner, he had already been with her.
While we decorated the house for Christmas, she had already been carrying his child.
While he lay beside me and thanked me for supporting his mother, he was planning another life.
Evelyn opened a second recording.
This one showed Michael seated in an administrative office, signing documents.
“What is he doing?” I asked.
“He authorized Patricia’s discharge from private rehabilitation.”
“That’s impossible. I paid for her care.”
“You gave him the money,” Evelyn replied carefully. “But the hospital never received it.”
I stared at her.
“I wrote four checks.”
“None of those payments reached Patricia’s account.”
She showed me the billing history.
The last legitimate payment had been made almost a month earlier.
Afterward, Michael had signed forms ending his mother’s rehabilitation program. Patricia had been transferred to a crowded charity ward because no one was paying for continued treatment.
I thought of the restaurant receipt.
The hidden calls.
The perfume.
The checks.
“What did he do with my money?”
“We cannot confirm everything,” Evelyn said. “But Patricia found apartment paperwork in his bag. It appears he was using the money to establish a home with Lauren.”
My vision blurred.
He had not only betrayed me.
He had used his own mother’s illness to finance that betrayal.
The Mother Who Had Tried to Save Me
“Where is Patricia?” I asked.
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