Chapter 7 - THE PREGNANCY WAS PLANNED
Sophia confirmed it.
Not happily.
“He told me you were separated.”
We were sitting in Rachel’s conference room.
Sophia had brought her own attorney.
Good.
Separate interests.
No secret alliance.
“When did you start trying?”
“About two months after we started seeing each other.”
My chest physically hurt.
“That quickly?”
She looked ashamed.
“Lukas told me you two had already tried for years and decided you didn’t want to continue.”
I laughed.
We had literally priced a third IVF cycle the same month.
Sophia continued.
“He said he wanted to be a father before forty.”
Lukas was thirty-nine.
“He said you didn’t want to keep trying.”
I closed my eyes.
That was the cruelest lie yet.
Then Sophia showed me messages.
SOPHIA:
Are you sure Evelyn is okay with divorce?
LUKAS:
She knows children are non-negotiable for me.
SOPHIA:
That’s not what I asked.
LUKAS:
We’ve had the conversation a hundred times.
We had not.
Not once.
I had spent six years injecting hormones into my body because I believed having a child was something we both wanted.
Then another message.
LUKAS:
If you get pregnant, everything becomes simpler.
SOPHIA:
How?
LUKAS:
Because everyone has to stop pretending.
I stared.
The pregnancy was not merely something he wanted.
He thought it would force reality.
Force me to leave.
Or force me to accept the arrangement.
Either outcome solved his problem.
Then Sophia told me why she called.
A week earlier, she asked Lukas when he planned to file for divorce.
He said:
“After Evelyn meets the baby.”
Sophia thought she misheard.
Then he explained that I might decide to stay.
“That was when I realized he had never actually planned the clean separation he promised me.”
Her eyes filled.
“I thought I was the person he was choosing.”
I understood that humiliation.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
I did not say it was okay.
It wasn’t.
“I believe you’re sorry.”
That was all I could offer.
Then Sophia gave us something important.
A voice message from Ingrid.
In German.
Ingrid told her:
Do not pressure Lukas to divorce too early. Evelyn is useful to the family, and she will be useful to the child.
Useful.
There it was.
Not loved.
Not respected.
Useful.
Then Sophia added:
“She also told me something about the IVF.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Ingrid said Lukas was tired of paying for treatments that were never going to work.”
My throat tightened.
“Our insurance covered most of them.”
Sophia looked confused.
“Then why did she say he had paid almost sixty thousand?”
He hadn’t.
Not even close.
I went back through our medical statements.
Then our taxes.
Then insurance reimbursements.
Something did not match.
Lukas had repeatedly told his parents that our fertility treatments were destroying us financially.
They weren’t.
So where had the supposed sixty thousand dollars gone?
The next morning, Heinrich answered that question.
He and Ingrid had given Lukas money over four years.
$62,000.
May you like
Specifically to help us with IVF.
I had never seen a dollar of it.
