“I didn’t cheat on him.”

She gave me a pitying smile.

“They all say that.”

Within a week, half the neighborhood knew.

The cheating wife.

The shameless woman.

The one who got pregnant after her husband’s vasectomy.

Then Diego posted a photo with Paola at a restaurant in Polanco. She was holding his arm.

The caption said:

“Sometimes life removes a lie to give you peace.”

I read it while sitting on the bathroom floor, crying and vomiting at the same time.

I had no peace.

I was terrified.

Terrified of losing my home.

Terrified of raising a child alone.

Terrified that my baby would carry the name of a man who already rejected him before even seeing his face.

Two weeks later, Diego asked me to meet him at a café.

He came with Paola.

And a folder.

“I want a quick divorce,” he said. “And when the baby is born, a DNA test.”