Page 60 of Letting Go

He doesn’t look surprised. He just keeps going. “That day, the woman, she was shaken up. So, I invited her to my office. Assured her that now, with him dead, she was free.” He pauses. “Only she tells me she will never be free. Not really. Because she was pregnant.”

The words hit me like a punch to the gut.Pregnant. I feel my breath catch. I don’t want to hear this. I don’twant to hear any more. But he keeps going, and I can’t look away.

“She told me she wanted to keep the baby. But she didn’t know how to tell her parents. How to tell anyone. Because, if they believed her, the baby would always be labelled-the product of rape.”

And there it is. Judge doesn’t stop. No, it’s like if he stops, he may not speak up again.

“So, I proposed. Literally.” He says it with this strange casualness, like it’s just a chapter in a book I should be flipping through. “I told her if we married, it would give her some security. She’d have my name on the baby’s birth certificate, and I’d have her family’s connections. She agreed. We married, moved to Chicago, and started over.”

And suddenly, it’s like the ground beneath me is gone. I can barely breathe.Michael. The pieces fall into place. The story wraps around me like a suffocating blanket.

“That woman was Paula Miller… I took her last name, but I had promised her the baby would have mine, so we named him Michael.” he finishes. He nods like the weight of it is no big deal, like the brokenness in his voice isn’t there at all.

My head spins. I blink a few times, struggling to keep up. But the words keep crashing against me, against everything I thought I knew.

“So, you’re saying Michael’s not your son?” The words come out in a burst, and I feel stupid for even asking it.

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t even flinch. “No, he’s not. Not biologically anyway,” he says, as if that’s the end of the conversation.

I stare at him, my brain a million miles away, and suddenly, it all starts to make sense. The way Paula never seemed close to him.

“Is that why Paula left?

And he answers, like it’s some justification, like it’s supposed to make everything clearer:

“It was hard for her. The pregnancy. Everyone knew it was a shotgun marriage. And the older Michael got, the more he looked like that man.”

I don’t know how to feel. I don’t know what to do with all of this. So, I just sit there. Silent.

When I found out about Michael’s affair, I wanted to destroy him. But this, this might actually kill him.

Chapter 22

That evening, I decide I can’t be alone. Not with my thoughts. Not with the dogs who I love but who definitely won’t stage an intervention if I spiral into emotional ruin over a bottle of cabernet and a playlist of mid-2000s breakup songs.

So, I invite Lorna and Hannah over for dinner at my place. Comfort zone. Emergency exit within reach. Dogs close enough to cuddle if I need emotional support that doesn’t talk back.

The thing is, Lorna and Hannah have been orbiting the same moon for years, mine, but they’ve never actually crossed paths. Hannah was my high school bestie, the one who saw me through my braces and my “I’m definitely going to marry a rock star” phase. We drifted apart when I went to college and found a whole new version of myself in law school. Enter Lorna, my sharp-edged, brilliant, whip-smart ride-or-die for three years of caffeine, courtroom hypotheticals, and crying in the library bathroom.

After graduation, life took us all in different directions. I lost touch with Lorna. Reconnected with Hannah. Never thought to merge the two. But tonight? You’d think they’d been swapping group texts for a decade. They’re perched on opposite ends of my couch like they’ve been best friends since birth, clinking glasses and talking over each other like women who just instinctively get each other.

Apparently, Lorna is married. What? I blinked and missed that entire chapter of her life.

“To Josh,” she says with a shrug, like she’s admitting she joined a book club, not, you know, tied her life to another human. “I never post about it. In my job, people are vindictive enough that they go after families. Josh and I agreed early on, we keep it quiet.”

“And he’s okay with that?” Hannah asks, leaning forward, her whole face lit up with second-hand curiosity.

Lorna smirks. “He’s a stay-at-home dad. I tell him all about my antics at work. Kinda made him scared of crossing me.”

We laugh, because of course she did.

Then Hannah shifts, one hand on her belly, and Lorna’s eyes narrow like she’s solving a case.

“You’re pregnant,” she says.

Hannah gasps. “How do you know that?”

“You’ve got that smug, glowy smugness. Plus, you haven’t touched your wine.”

---