“No,” I said firmly, forcing a smile. “The baby didn’t do anything wrong. None of this is because of you or Maya. Adults just have complicated things going on sometimes.”
He accepted that answer because children are inherently generous when adults don’t deserve it.
A few days after we settled at home, I posted a candid picture of Leo sitting on the couch holding his tiny sister.
He looked simultaneously terrified of dropping her and bursting with pride.
Friends commented.
Coworkers from the clinic commented.
Even old high-school acquaintances sent kind messages.
My mother did not react at all.
That deafening silence bothered me far more than her angry, passive-aggressive comments ever had.
Then, about three weeks postpartum, an old mutual friend named Sarah contacted me.
Sarah had known Khloe and me since middle school.
After the divorce, she had naturally stayed much closer to Khloe.
I didn’t hold that against her.
People naturally choose whatever social path creates the least friction, and remaining neutral around two sisters whose relationship imploded over infidelity is basically impossible.
Sarah’s message was vague and slightly frantic.
She asked if I could please meet her for coffee sometime soon because there was something major she thought I absolutely needed to know.
My first instinct was a hard no.
I had a newborn who wasn’t sleeping through the night.
I was physically exhausted.
My hormones were all over the place.
Historically, every single time anyone in my orbit said, “There’s something you should know,” my life got exponentially worse.
But morbid curiosity is one of my fatal flaws.
So, a couple of weeks later, I left pumped milk in the refrigerator, left Marcus with the baby, and drove to a Panera Bread to meet Sarah during her lunch break.
Sarah looked nervous.
She bought my coffee, sat across from me, fidgeted with her napkin for two minutes, and finally dropped a nuclear bomb.
Khloe had recently learned a horrifying truth about Greg.
Apparently, Khloe and Greg had been fighting viciously for months about their stalled fertility treatments.
Khloe had spent literal years believing she was the broken one because of her irregular cycles.
She had willingly subjected herself to invasive appointments, painful diagnostic tests, hormone injections, obsessive cycle tracking, and all the rest of it.
The entire medical and emotional burden had rested on her shoulders.
Whenever the subject of testing Greg came up, he aggressively pushed it aside, smugly reminding her that he had already fathered Leo.
Therefore, according to him, his fertility was obviously fine.
During one particularly ugly screaming argument, Khloe accused him of not caring enough to figure out what was wrong with them.
Greg finally snapped.
He told her there was nothing to figure out.
He had secretly gotten a vasectomy not long after Leo was born.
I stopped breathing.
The bustling noise of Panera seemed to disappear.
I stared at Sarah, certain I had misheard.
“Wait. Before our divorce?”
Sarah gave me a grim nod.
“Yes. While you were still married.”
I sat back in the hard wooden chair and stared at her.
My first reaction wasn’t even anger.
It was blank confusion.