In mine, a woman I still loved had made a clean choice to leave and start over, and I had honored it by keeping my distance.

In hers, a man she had reached for in the most vulnerable moment of her life had listened to her beg and had coldly handed her to his lawyers.

She had carried our child through a hard pregnancy and a dangerous delivery believing that second story about me — believing I had heard I’m pregnant, it’s about us, please and answered with a form letter routed through legal.

I could not fathom the strength it had taken to keep going through that, alone, holding that version of me in her head.