I thought the news would bring us closer.
Instead, he stared at the test as though I had handed him a weapon.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I remember laughing nervously.
“How do you think?”
He didn’t laugh.
He asked when I had supposedly become pregnant.
I told him.
He counted the weeks.
Then looked at me.
“This isn’t possible.”
My heart sank.
“What do you mean?”
“You were away visiting your sister.”
“For four days.”
He shook his head.
“You’re lying.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I am your wife.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Then came the words that stayed with me for eight years.
“I don’t believe this pregnancy is mine.”
I begged him to wait.
To see the doctor.
To take a test.
He refused.
Within weeks, he had moved out.
His family believed him.
His friends believed him.
And eventually, the divorce papers arrived.
I signed them while seven months pregnant.
I gave birth to four boys.
Yes.
Four.
The doctors had discovered the truth during an ultrasound.
Four babies.
Four heartbeats.
A rare pregnancy.
Adrian never came to see them.
Not once.
And now, eight years later, he wanted me to bring them to Christmas.
I wondered if he remembered what he had said.
I wondered if he would recognize his own face staring back at him.
