And just like that, you are no longer his wife.
The room shifts in subtle ways after those words are spoken. Damián exhales. Ruth smiles openly now, unable to hide her satisfaction. Javier closes the file in front of him with deliberate care, as though preserving a pressed flower between pages. You place your hand over your stomach and feel your son move beneath your palm, one firm kick that seems to say, Keep going.
You rise slowly.
Damián steps into your path before you reach the door.
“Well,” he says, with the polished cruelty of a man who thinks he is being generous, “I hope now you can accept reality and focus on the baby.”
You look at him quietly.
Then your eyes move to Ruth, whose perfume arrives before her words do.
“We truly do wish you the best,” she says. “This is healthier for everyone. A child deserves stability, and frankly, your life and Damián’s were heading in different directions.”
She says it with the warmth of velvet over broken glass. She wants the last word. She wants you diminished. She wants today to become the clean, elegant beginning of her great love story.
Instead, you smile.
