Chapter 3: The Coffee Shop
Two weeks later Derek summoned me to a local coffee shop.
He arrived with Jessica. Between them they carried a thick manila folder that looked heavier than any ordinary set of papers should.
“I want a quick divorce,” he stated once we were seated. “And when it’s born, I want a court-ordered DNA test.”
Jessica rested one hand on her perfectly flat stomach and offered a small, sympathetic smile that did not reach her eyes. “It’s the healthiest thing for everyone.”
I looked at her. “For everyone, or just for you?”
Derek’s palm came down hard on the table. The coffee cups rattled.
“Don’t play the victim here. You broke this family.”
I opened the folder.
The documents were thorough. Signing over any claim to the house. Minimum state child support. Conditional custody language that would give him leverage. And near the back, buried in dense paragraphs, a clause that made my blood run cold: if the baby was not his, I would be required to reimburse him for “all marital living expenses” incurred during the pregnancy.
I laughed. The sound was dry and broken.
“Marital expenses? Are you going to retroactively charge me for the years I spent washing your dirty laundry, too?”
Jessica’s cheeks flushed. Derek’s jaw tightened.
“Sign it, Sarah. Don’t make this more humiliating than it already is.”
“Humiliating,” I said, “was you leaving with your mistress before attending a single medical appointment with me.”
I closed the folder and pushed it back across the table.
“I’m not signing that.”
May you like
I stood, gathered my purse, and walked out while they were still seated. Behind me I heard Jessica’s low voice, but I did not turn around.
That night I slept with a heavy oak dining chair wedged under my bedroom doorknob. I told myself it was unnecessary. I did it anyway. A woman who has just been publicly branded a liar starts to hear threats in every ordinary sound the house makes after dark.
