“Not today,” I said. “I need you to leave now. Both of you.”
Diane stood up slowly. She looked at Evelyn with such naked longing that it almost hurt to see.
“Claire,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I know that’s not enough. I know nothing will ever be enough.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It isn’t.”
My dad walked them to the door. I stayed in the living room with Evelyn. Through the window, I watched Ben walk down my parents’ driveway with his head bowed. Halfway to the car, he stopped and turned around and looked back at the house. At the window. At me and the baby in my arms.
Then he got in the car, and Diane drove him away.
I didn’t sleep that night either.
But it was different from the night before. The night before, I’d been a woman whose husband abandoned her for no reason. Now I was a woman whose husband abandoned her for a reason. And I honestly couldn’t tell you which was worse.
