One year after my divorce, my ex-mother-in-law saw me at the clinic and smiled with that smug satisfaction I knew too well. She told me her son had been right to leave me and that he was now raising a daughter with my former friend. I stayed composed, smiled back, and said, “Is that what you think?” Then a man walked in, and every trace of color drained from her face.
A year after the divorce, my ex-mother-in-law spotted me in the waiting room of Westbridge Fertility Clinic in Denver.
Patricia Parker wore pearls, heavy perfume, and the same self-satisfied smile she had worn in court when my ex-husband, Ryan, claimed our marriage had been “emotionally empty.” I had not seen her since the divorce hearing, when she embraced Megan Ellis, my former best friend, right in front of me.
Now Patricia stopped next to my chair and looked me over from head to toe.“Well,” she said, loud enough for the receptionist to hear, “isn’t this interesting?”
I closed the folder resting in my lap. “Hello, Patricia.”
Her smile widened. “I heard you were still alone.”
I did not answer.
Her eyes gleamed with satisfaction. “Leaving you was the best choice my son ever made. Now he’s raising a beautiful daughter with Megan. A real Something you could never give him.”
My throat tightened, but I kept my expression still.
Ryan and I had spent years trying to have a child. We endured injections, failed transfers, debt, grief, and two frozen embryos kept at that clinic. After our last miscarriage, Ryan started pulling away. Megan became supportive. Then supportive turned into late-night phone calls. Then late-night phone calls became a divorce.Six months after the divorce, Megan announced she was pregnant.
Patricia told everyone it was a miracle.
I believed that too, until a clinic billing notice accidentally arrived at my old email. It listed an embryo transfer date two weeks after my divorce had been filed.
She thought she had come there to remind me that I had lost.
But when that man walked through the door, the truth walked in with him.
Ryan had not built a new family after leaving me.
He had stolen the last piece of ours.
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