And then one frantic call was finally answered — not by Grayson, but by his mother, Delphine, who listened to about ten seconds of me before she told me, in a voice like a closing door, to stop trying to trap a man who had moved on to a better life with a fake pregnancy.

I was heartbroken, and I was frightened, and I had no money.

Grayson’s family could field a legal defense team that would have buried me before I filed a single motion.

I did the arithmetic that poor women have always had to do, and I made the only choice that arithmetic allowed.

I stopped calling.

I would raise my children alone.

I told myself it was a decision.