Part 2

Part 2: “Proof,” Ethan said.

“Proof of what?”

His voice cracked with fury. “That you’re sleeping with him.”

For a second, Maya actually laughed. Not because it was funny, but because the accusation was too absurd to fit inside reality.

“Daniel is my supervisor. He’s married. He has three kids.”

“My investigator followed you for weeks.”

“Your investigator followed me to work.”

Eleanor stepped forward. “Maya, please don’t make this uglier than it already is.”

Maya turned on her. “You did this.”

Eleanor placed a hand over her chest. “Excuse me?”

“You’ve wanted me gone since the day Ethan brought me home.”

Ethan stood. “Don’t blame my mother because you got caught.”

Maya felt the ultrasound photo burning in her pocket.

Tell him, something inside her begged.

Tell him now.

But Ethan was looking at her as though her skin disgusted him. As though three years of marriage, every sacrifice, every long shift, every promise,

every prayer for a baby had vanished under the weight of a few photographs his mother had bought.

“I loved you,” Maya said.

He laughed bitterly. “You don’t do this to someone you love.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

Eleanor walked to the coffee table and picked up a stack of papers.

Divorce papers.

Maya stared at them until the words blurred.

Ethan looked away. “Sign them.”

The room tilted.

“I came home to tell you something,” Maya whispered.

“I don’t want to hear another lie.”

There it was.

The door closing.

Not slowly. Not gently.

Slammed.

Something in Maya hardened so fast it hurt.

She took the pen.

Signed every page.

Ethan did not stop her.

Eleanor watched like a woman admiring a house she had burned down cleanly.

Maya packed one suitcase that night. She left behind the wedding photos, the china, the soft gray blanket they had bought

on their honeymoon in Maine. She left behind the house, the man, the future.

At the door, Ethan spoke one last time.

“Leave the key.”

She placed it on the counter.

The click sounded like a judge’s gavel.

Three blocks away, at a red light, Maya pulled the ultrasound picture from her pocket and pressed it to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered to the life inside her. “But we are not begging anyone to love us.”

The light turned green.

She drove into the rain.

Ava Rose Bennett was born during a thunderstorm in a Chicago hospital that smelled like antiseptic and cafeteria coffee.

Maya delivered her without a husband in the waiting room, without flowers, without anyone pacing and crying and calling relatives.

Only a nurse named Ruth held her hand and kept saying, “You’re doing great, honey. Almost there.”

When Ava finally cried, Maya cried harder.