I was standing in the doorway of my own bedroom.

Margaret's voice came from down the corridor. "Camille found the guest room too cramped. She needed space to change after Aspen, coming and going. I had the housekeeper clear the window side of the closet for her temporary use." She paused. "You weren't here. I didn't know when you'd be back. She'll move back to the guest room tonight."

She didn't ask where I'd been. She didn't ask why I was moving so carefully, why I was holding my coat closed over my abdomen, why I looked like someone who had spent three days in a hospital bed.

Then she was gone.

Damien came home that evening.

I heard him at the front door - the particular sound of his keys, his coat being handed off to the housekeeper. I was standing in the entryway. He walked past me without seeing me, eyes on his phone.

"Damien."

He looked up. A half-second of blankness crossed his face, like he was placing me. "Oh. You're back?"

Like I was someone who occasionally passed through.

He started up the stairs. Halfway up, he stopped and turned back to the housekeeper. "There's a Moncler in Camille's luggage - wash it separately, she's sensitive to detergent. And Rosalind left her new ski boots at the hotel. Call them, have it shipped back, charge it to my card, not the household account."

He kept walking.

He never looked at me again.

"Damien." My voice came out flat. "Don't you want to ask anything?"

He stopped on the stairs. Turned. "Ask what?"

"The checkup. Three days ago."

He thought about it. I watched him actually think about it, searching for what I meant. Then his expression shifted into something like recognition. "It was just a routine checkup, right? It's done?"

"The baby is gone," I said. "Because you weren't there."

His face tightened. "What are you talking about? Stop being hysterical." He came down two steps. "You always do this. Dramatic, irrational, emotional. No wonder Rosalind doesn't want to be around you. Look at yourself."

I looked at him instead. Really looked - maybe for the first time in years. This man I had loved since university. The man I had handed my career to, my friends, my entire self. He was looking at me the way you look at a problem that won't resolve itself.

"Is that right?" I said. "Rosalind only likes Mama Camille? The woman who had already planned to marry her husband's brother after that funeral?"

The color drained from his face. He stepped toward me, voice dropping to something quiet and sharp. "How dare you. Camille just lost her husband. She's grieving. She's fragile. You're jealous of a widow? Elise, you're cold. You have no heart. I can't believe I married someone this cruel."

He turned toward the dining room. At the door, he looked back. "Think about what you said. Fix your attitude before Rosalind sees you like this."

The door shut.

The sound traveled through the whole empty house.

One tear slid down my cheek. Then another. I wiped them off roughly.

I was done crying for this man. Done begging for scraps of attention. Done pretending this marriage was anything other than a cage I had built around myself and called love.

I walked back to the master bedroom. I took Camille's skincare bottles off my vanity one by one and dropped them in the bin by the door. I pulled her untagged clothes off the hangers in the closet and set them in the hallway. I moved my own clothes back to the center. I picked my novel up off the floor and put it back on the nightstand where it belonged.

My phone was in my hand before I'd made a conscious decision. I found Olivia's name and called.

She picked up on the second ring. "Ellie? What's wrong? You sound -"

"Livvy." My voice shook, but my mind was the clearest it had been in years. "Do you know any good divorce lawyers?"