After My Husband’s Affair Destroyed My Mother’s Funeral

The Tuesday sky over Midtown was the kind of pale gray that makes everything look tired. I remember that detail more clearly than I remember walking the two blocks from the subway. My coat was buttoned wrong. I noticed it in the elevator mirror going up to the seventh floor and didn't bother to fix it.

Just a routine appointment. I had a list on my phone. Refill vitamins. Ask about the sleep thing. Confirm the follow-up in six months. That was all.

The clinic waiting room smelled like lemon cleaner and warm paper. A soft radio played something instrumental from the ceiling. I signed in, took a clipboard, and turned to find a seat.

That's when I saw him.

Beckham. My husband. Sitting three chairs from the window in a navy sweater I had folded and packed into a suitcase two Christmases ago. The sweater I had bought him. The one that was supposed to be in Johannesburg.

My knees didn't buckle. My hand didn't shake. My body just went quiet the way a room goes quiet when the music cuts out mid-song.

He was holding someone's hand.

I followed the line of his arm down to the woman beside him. Long dark hair pulled back. A soft cream coat unbuttoned over a stomach that was round and low and unmistakably far along. Seven months. Maybe eight.

And then she turned her head, and I stopped breathing.

Briella.

Briella, whose tuition I had paid for two and a half years. Briella, who signed her thank-you emails with little heart emojis. Briella, who had sent me a photo of her last semester's grades in September with the caption *couldn't have done this without you.*

She saw me a half-second after Beckham did. Her hand stayed inside his. She didn't pull away. She didn't even flinch. She just tilted her chin up, slow and small, the way a cat does when it has already decided you aren't a threat.

Beckham looked at me across the waiting room. His face did nothing. No color drained. No mouth fell open. He just held my eyes for a beat, then let his gaze drift down to the clipboard in my hand like he was appraising a receipt.

I walked over. I don't remember choosing to. My legs simply moved.

"Get up."

My voice came out steady. Not loud. The woman across the aisle looked up from her phone anyway.

"Aria." Beckham exhaled my name like it was a mild inconvenience. "Let's not do this here."

"Get. Up."

He rose. Slowly. He didn't let go of Briella's hand until the last possible second, and even then he squeezed her fingers first, like a promise.

I walked into the hallway by the water cooler. He followed. The door swung shut behind us and cut the radio in half.

"Johannesburg," I said.

"Aria—"

"You called me Sunday. From Johannesburg. You said the Wi-Fi at the office was slow."

He put his hands in his pockets. He actually put his hands in his pockets. Like we were talking about a parking ticket.

"I was going to tell you." His voice was level. Almost gentle. Like he was the one being reasonable. "It's been three years, Aria. Briella and I have been together for three years. The baby is mine."

Three years.

I heard the number, but it didn't land yet. It sat somewhere above my head, waiting.

"The baby is a boy," he said. "And I've thought about this. I've thought about it a lot. The Stone family name matters to me. To my father. You know that." He paused, and I swear to God, he softened his eyes. "I want you to raise him. With me. With us. It's the cleanest thing for everyone. For the family's future."

Behind him, through the glass panel in the door, I could see Briella. She had shifted forward in her chair to watch. Her arms were folded over the top of her stomach. She was smiling. Not big. Just a small, private curve at the corner of her mouth. Like she was watching a show she'd already seen the ending of.

My hands were very cold.

"I want a divorce," I said.

Beckham laughed.

It was a short sound. One syllable. The kind of laugh a man makes when a child threatens to run away from home.

"Sure you do." He reached into the inside pocket of his coat and pulled out a folded packet of papers. Already prepared. Already printed. He clicked a pen against his thigh and signed the top page against the wall without even looking at what he was signing. Then he held the pen out to me. "Thirty days, Aria. That's the waiting period. You'll have time to think clearly. You'll call me before the week is out."

I took the pen. I signed my name.

He smiled at me. Actually smiled. Like I had confirmed something for him.

"Go home," he said. "Get some sleep."

I walked out of the clinic without picking up my coat from the chair. I don't remember the elevator. I don't remember the street.

I remember my bathroom floor. The tile was cold through my tights. My coat was still buttoned wrong. My phone was in my hand, but I hadn't called anyone.

The doorbell rang forty minutes later. Then a key in the lock. Nyla had a key.

She didn't say hello. She didn't ask what happened. She walked into the bathroom in her scrubs, sat down on the tile beside me, and put her back against the tub.

We sat there a long time.

"He laughed," I said finally.

Nyla didn't look at me. She reached over and took my hand.

"He won't be laughing long."

Somewhere in the apartment, a clock I couldn't see started counting down from thirty.