My mother started posting vague, melodramatic statements online about supporting loved ones through unimaginable betrayal.
The lack of self-awareness was almost impressive.
Then, one rainy Tuesday afternoon while I was on maternity leave, my phone rang.
Unknown local number.
I answered because I was waiting on a call from Maya’s pediatrician regarding a mild rash.
It wasn’t the doctor.
It was my sister.
Her voice was incredibly soft in a way I hadn’t heard since we were teenagers.
Too soft.
It was that carefully calibrated softness she used when she wanted something.
“Hey,” she breathed. “Can we please talk?”
My entire body went rigid.
I should have hung up immediately.
Instead, morbid curiosity won again.
“Talk about what, Khloe?”
She took a ragged breath.
Then she told me she and Greg were getting divorced.
I said nothing.
I stood in my living room staring blankly at the television.
Then she started crying.
“Elena, there’s another woman.”
There are rare moments when the universe hands you exactly the kind of poetic irony you always thought you wanted.
Surprisingly, it feels nothing like satisfaction.
It just feels sad and dirty.
Khloe sobbed and told me she had found hidden messages on Greg’s iPad.
He had been seeing a 24-year-old coworker for more than six months.
He had used exactly the same tired excuses with Khloe that he had used with me.
Working late on a huge project.
Needing space to decompress.
Feeling suffocated and misunderstood at home.
Her voice cracked.
“I know you’re probably thrilled about this. I know you’re happy.”
I genuinely wasn’t.
I wasn’t deeply heartbroken for her the way a connected sister might have been, but I certainly wasn’t happy.
Mostly, I felt profound exhaustion.
“I’m not happy, Khloe,” I said quietly.
She cried harder.
Then she said she finally understood what it must have felt like for me all those years ago.
She said she knew she had done something terrible.
Maybe, she said, this brutal karma was exactly what she deserved.
For half a second, my rigid emotional walls softened.
I remembered being the woman sitting on a couch holding Greg’s phone.
Then Khloe ruined it.
“But I was so much younger back then, Elena. I didn’t truly understand what I was getting into. He manipulated both of us. We were both his victims.”
There it was.