His Love Was a Test I Could Never Pass

Otto rushed into the bedroom with the color drained from his face, scooped me up, and ran for the hospital.

The doctor said my condition was dangerous and that the pregnancy needed to be stabilized immediately.

Otto stood outside the emergency room and, for the first time, lost every shred of his composure.

"I don't want to save the baby! Save the mother! Did you hear me?! I said save the mother!!"

When I woke, he was sitting at the edge of the hospital bed, his eyes bloodshot, his arm still wrapped in bandages.

Vivien whispered to me that on the way to the hospital, the car had nearly collided with a delivery truck.

It was Otto who had thrown himself over me to shield me, his arm cut deep by the shattered glass, more than a dozen stitches.

And he hadn't even waited for the anesthetic to take hold before running back to the room to watch over me.

I shrank away from the arm reaching to hold me and asked softly,

"Otto, what exactly do you mean by all this?"

Otto looked at me with reddened eyes.

"All because of one gift, you're going to put us through all this. Is that it?"

"Leah just got back to the country. That gift was nothing more than common courtesy."

"You only saw a seven-figure necklace, but you didn't see that every single thing in this house, all of it, I bought for you and the baby."

"You couldn't sleep well, so I had a mattress custom-made for you."

"You couldn't stand the smell of cooking oil, so I came home right after work to make you soup."

"I painted the nursery with my own hands. I made the furniture for our child with my own hands."

"I've worked to be a good husband, a good father, and never imagined that in your eyes, none of it could measure up to one necklace."

He pressed a hand over his wound, looking at me with disappointment.

"Deidre, I can give you so much love. I'd give up my own life for you and the baby."

"But I can't give you money. I don't want money mixed into what we have."

After that, he started a cold war with me.

Whatever I said, he acted as if he hadn't heard it.

Every night he claimed he had to work late, and he slept in a separate room from me.

He even went out of his way to needle me, saying I claimed to love him with my mouth while my heart only cared about his money,

just waiting for me to back down, explain, and apologize.

But with Leah he grew closer and closer, joining her for dinners, taking her to gallery openings, throwing money around to make her happy.

Vivien tried to reason with me.

"Ma'am, the master is only sulking. He loves you so much. The money may not be in your hands, but isn't all of it spent on you and the baby?"

"If I were you, I'd hurry and apologize, and promise never to fight with him over money again."

I opened my mouth, but my chest was knotted tight with misery.

I asked myself,

"Deidre, is that necklace really so important?"

I looked at the floor scattered with the baby toys he'd carved by hand and the nursery he'd painted himself,

and for one moment, I truly wavered.

But it was right then that my father was diagnosed with kidney failure.

I set aside my pride to plead with Otto, and didn't even dare call it anything but a loan.

Yet all he gave me was disgust and disappointment.

"Deidre, how are you still like this?"

In that moment, I finally understood.

What I cared about was never that one necklace.

It was that Otto's love was like an exam I could never pass.

I gave everything I had to prove my heart was true, and still he found me wanting;

yet Leah didn't have to do a thing, and he'd already scored her a perfect mark.

Now, this was the third time I wanted a divorce.

This time, I was going to go through with it.

I waited for Otto on the living room sofa all night long.

From dark until dawn, the study door stayed shut.

Through that one door, I could hear Leah's laughter drifting out now and then, and Otto's deliberately lowered, soothing voice.

I sat on the sofa, gripping that divorce agreement in my hand, and what had started as fury faded, until in the end all that was left was numbness.