"She made her bed," I told Mr. Daniels. "Let her lie in it." He gave me this look like I'd just announced I was joining a cult or starting a meth lab in my garage. "But Grant, she's pregnant."
"Doesn't matter what happened between you two. She needs help." "Then her boss can help her," I said, shoving the trash bag into the can with more force than necessary. "He's the father, not me."
Mr. Daniels shook his head like he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "I don't know what happened between you two, but this isn't right, son. A man doesn't abandon his wife when she's carrying a child." "A wife doesn't get pregnant by another man," I shot back because I was getting really tired of everyone acting like I was the villain in this story.
Charles Whitmore wanted a baby. He got one. Now he could deal with everything that came with it. But Charles and Vivien, it turned out, were about as useful as screen doors on a submarine when it came to the day-to-day reality of pregnancy.
They showed up for the big moments. The ultrasound appointments where they could see their precious baby developing. The doctor visits where they could ask questions about genetic testing and due dates. They brought expensive gifts and talked about nursery themes and college funds.
But when Melissa needed someone to hold her hair back while she puked her guts out, or when she needed help getting up from the couch because her center of gravity had shifted to somewhere around Jupiter, Charles and Vivien were nowhere to be found. They had lives to live, after all, important places to be. Charles had board meetings and golf games. Vivien had charity galas and spa appointments.
They couldn't be expected to deal with the messy, unglamorous parts of pregnancy. That's what husbands were for. Except I wasn't her husband anymore. Not in any way that mattered.
I was just the guy who happened to share a house with her while lawyers figured out how to divide up eight years of marriage into neat little legal categories. I was the roommate who knew where she kept the good ice cream and which brand of prenatal vitamins didn't make her nauseous, but who had absolutely zero interest in using that knowledge to make her life easier. Because here's the thing nobody talks about when they're busy judging your choices. Sometimes love isn't enough.
Sometimes respect matters more than affection. And sometimes preserving your own sanity is more important than being the bigger person. Melissa had chosen Charles and Vivien's needs over mine, their future over ours, their happiness over our family stability. Now she could live with the consequences of that choice all by herself, just like she'd wanted.