I shuffled to the nursery. The babies didn’t care about betrayal or “brand dip.” They cared about warmth and the steadiness of my arms. I lifted them one by one, a balancing act of need and love. As I swayed Caleb, I realized Mark hadn’t left because I had become “ugly.” He left because I had become real, and Mark Vane couldn’t survive in a world he couldn’t curate.

By midnight, after the babies had finally settled into a shaky nap, I opened the papers. Mark’s offer was a performance of mercy. The Connecticut house, a modest stipend, and custody terms that assumed I would remain a silent, vestigial organ of his past life. He wrote as if I were a dependent, not a partner.

I didn’t call my mother. I didn’t call the “friends” who would turn my misery into brunch gossip. I called the one person Mark had banned from our house two years ago.

“Nora?” I said, my throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper.

“Anna?” Nora Klein, my former editor at The Metropolitan, answered on the first ring. “I’ve been waiting for this call for seven hundred and thirty days.”