I smirked to myself. I’d seen dozens of these stories online, and I knew the only way out was to let her dig her own grave. The more emotional I appeared, the more ammunition they’d give me to destroy them.

Over the next few days, I played my part perfectly. I “accidentally” left my laptop open to baby name websites. I made sure they saw me reading parenting books at the kitchen table. My performance was flawless.

That weekend, we were watching an anime on the couch, and a character made an irresistible pun in Japanese. I couldn’t help it. I laughed out loud, a split second before the subtitle even appeared on the screen.