Julia stepped in front of her daughter at once. Her voice was steady now, which was somehow worse. “No. You don’t get to walk back in here and act like this is normal.”
David looked up at her, shattered. “Julia, please —”
“No,” she said again. “Tomorrow I’m calling my lawyer. And until you figure out how to tell the truth for longer than five minutes, you will not come and go from Nikki’s life whenever it suits you.”
I slipped off my wedding ring with numb fingers and set it down on the table beside Julia’s keys.
“And I’m filing for an annulment,” I said. “You married me under false pretenses. You don’t get to keep either life.”
His face crumpled. He looked from me to Julia, finally understanding what he had done.
“I’m filing for an annulment,”
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Two homes. Two women. One lie too many.
Julia opened the front door. “Leave.”
This time, when he stepped outside, he knew there was nowhere left for him to go.
***
I helped Julia pack a few of his things into a box. We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.
At the door, she said quietly, “Maybe he only knew how to look good when someone was loving him.”
I swallowed. “That doesn’t get to be enough anymore.”
She nodded.
“Leave.”
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