Chapter 4 - SOPHIE HAD BEEN LIED TO TOO
I left dinner smiling.
Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in Sophie’s apartment.
It was the first time we met face-to-face.
She looked younger than I expected.
Thirty-three.
Pregnancy obvious now beneath a gray sweater.
There was no glamour.
No victorious mistress.
Just a frightened woman sitting across from the wife of the man who had lied to both of us.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know.”
“I should have checked.”
“Yes.”
She flinched.
I wasn't interested in making her comfortable.
But I wasn't interested in destroying her either.
“What did Julian tell you about our fertility treatments?”
Sophie looked confused.
“That you stopped trying.”
“When?”
“Almost two years ago.”
I stared at her.
Julian and I had undergone treatment nine months earlier.
“What else?”
“He said you didn't want adoption or surrogacy.”
Another lie.
We had discussed both.
I had wanted to wait until we had emotionally recovered from our final treatment cycle.
Then Sophie said:
“He told me you encouraged him to consider becoming a father another way.”
My mouth went dry.
“What?”
“He said your marriage had become more like friendship.”
I laughed once.
Three weeks earlier, Julian had made love to me after our anniversary dinner and whispered that he still believed we could become parents.
Sophie covered her face.
“Oh God.”
“Keep going.”
“He said you knew he wanted biological children.”
“That part is true.”
“And that you'd eventually understand.”
“No.”
Sophie walked to a cabinet and brought out the folder Helga had given her.
The proposed custody agreement.
It was worse than she described.
Sophie would receive money.
Julian would receive primary custody.
She would have scheduled visitation.
The document repeatedly referred to “stable two-parent household placement.”
Two-parent household.
Julian and me.
My name was not included.
But I was the invisible labor supporting the entire arrangement.
“Did Julian see this?”
“Yes.”
My heart sank.
“What did he say?”
“He said it was only an option.”
“And you?”
“I told him I'd rather live in my car than sell my baby.”
Good.
Then Sophie handed me a second document.
“I don't know what this means.”
It was a letter from a fertility clinic.
My clinic.
Julian’s name appeared at the top.
Dated eighteen months earlier.
I stared.
“Why do you have this?”
“It was in a folder he left here.”
I read the first paragraph.
Mr. Bennett, following your repeat analysis, we recommend that both partners attend the scheduled consultation to discuss significant male-factor findings and revised treatment options.
My hands started shaking.
Male-factor findings.
For six years, Julian’s family had treated me like the defective wife.
Julian had allowed it.
May you like
And according to this letter, he had known there was a significant fertility issue on his side too.
He had never told me.
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