He raised one hand. “Trevor. Stop.”
I stopped.
He folded the paper carefully. “Hannah did not need to prove you were imperfect. She needed to prove she could not rely on you during your child’s infancy. This helps her.”
I pressed my palms into my eyes.
That night returned in fragments. Vanessa laughing under white sheets. My phone buzzing again and again. Me turning it face down. The irritation I had felt—not fear, not concern, irritation—as if my newborn’s fever was an inconvenience scheduled by my wife to ruin my pleasure.
Grace had been fine. A virus, Hannah later said. No hospitalization. No lasting harm.
But Hannah had sat alone in an urgent care waiting room with a feverish infant while I lay beside another woman and resented the sound of my phone.
No court in the world could make that worse than it already was.
When I left Franklin’s office, I drove without knowing where I was going.
I ended up outside Vanessa’s apartment.
She opened the door wearing silk pajamas and a look of annoyance.
“Trevor,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“She left.”
Vanessa blinked. “Who?”
“Hannah.”
“Oh.”
That was all.
Oh.
I stepped inside. Her apartment was bright and impersonal, decorated in white and silver, nothing out of place. The bracelet I had bought her sat on the coffee table, still in its box.
“She took Grace,” I said.
Vanessa folded her arms. “Isn’t that what wives do when they find out?”
I stared at her. “You knew?”
“I knew you were sloppy.”
