When Irene learned what had happened, she laughed.
“Men who lie a great deal often recycle scripts.”
The gossip in our neighborhood took longer to disappear.
Diego’s mother, suddenly desperate to regain access to the family, began telling people that the babies really were his.
Before the ultrasound, I had been labeled unfaithful.
Afterward, people began referring to me as “poor thing.”
I disliked that just as much.
I didn’t want pity.
I wanted respect.
One afternoon, while shopping, a woman approached me and said how wonderful it was that everything had finally been clarified.
I stood holding a bag of rice.
“Not everything was cleared up. It was only proven that I was not lying. What he did remains just as it was.”
She had no answer.
And I discovered that sometimes silence from people who once judged you could be its own form of justice.
At twenty-eight weeks, my pregnancy became more complicated.
