Lauren suddenly sat down.
I rushed toward her.
“Sweetheart?”Start Baby Registry
“I’m okay.”
She wasn’t.
Her hands were trembling.
Then she looked at the pink cake.
And something clicked for me.
“Lauren.”
She looked up.
“You knew something was wrong before you cut it.”
Mark stared at her.
“What?”
Lauren wiped her face.
“Last night.”
Her voice was quiet.
“I saw a message on your phone.”
Mark went completely still.
“From Tania.”
He said nothing.
“I didn’t read the whole thing.”
Lauren looked at me.
“I saw her name.”
“What did it say?”
She looked toward Mark.
“‘You cannot hide her forever.’”
Mark closed his eyes.
“I thought you were having an affair.”
Lauren pressed her palm against her stomach.
“I almost confronted you last night.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because today was supposed to be happy.”
That sentence broke my heart.
“I told myself I would wait until after the party.”
Then she looked at the cake.
“But when I cut it and saw pink, Mark looked relieved.”Consult Family Lawyer
She swallowed.
“Not happy.”
Mark stared at her.
“Relieved.”
Lauren nodded.
“And suddenly I knew whatever that message meant, the cake was somehow part of it.”
Mark crouched in front of her.
“I love you.”
Lauren looked at him.
“I waited four years for this baby.”
“I know.”
“Two miscarriages.”
“I was there.”
Her expression hardened.
“No.”
He stopped.
“You were standing next to me.”
Her voice broke.
“That isn’t the same thing as being there.”
Mark started crying.
Lauren looked down at her wedding ring.
Slowly, she pulled it off.
He stared.
“Lauren.”
She placed it on the table.
Right beside the pink cake.
“I can’t do this today.”
“Please.”
“I can’t.”
“We can fix this.”
She looked at him.
“What exactly are we fixing first?”
He said nothing.Try Gourmet Desserts
“The cheating?”
Silence.
“The child you hid?”
His eyes dropped.
“The secret visits?”
Nothing.
“The fake work trips?”
Nothing.
“The lie about our baby’s gender?”
Nothing.
“The fact that you stood beside me while everyone congratulated us on a daughter you knew we weren’t having?”
His shoulders shook.
Lauren stood.
“No.”
She put one hand protectively over her stomach.
“I spent four years thinking the hardest thing my marriage would ever survive was losing babies.”
Her eyes filled.
“I didn’t know I was surviving you too.”
