They moved together with the familiarity of people who had done it many times before.
I don’t remember deciding to speak.
“How long?”
Nadia jumped away from him.
Zion spun around so quickly that he bumped into the coffee table.
Then he looked at me and said:
“What are you doing home?”
Of all the things he could have said, that was what came out.
Nadia’s eyes immediately filled with tears.
“Please. Let us explain.”
“Us?”
I stared between them.
“So there’s an ‘us’ now?”
Zion stepped toward me.
I moved backward.
“How long?” I asked again.
Neither answered.
Finally, Nadia whispered:
“A few months.”
My stomach turned.
Then she added:
“It wasn’t planned. It just happened. Sometimes you meet the person you’re meant to be with in the last place you expect.”
Something inside me went numb.
A few months.
Months in which I had sat beside Valerie at hospital appointments.
Months in which Zion texted me asking how his mother was doing while apparently spending his time with Nadia.
Months in which my sister called and asked whether I needed help.
And now she was standing in my living room talking about finding true love.
“You smiled at me,” I said to Nadia. “You called me. You acted like my sister while sleeping with my husband.”
She started crying.
Then I looked at Zion.
“And you could have been spending time with your dying mother.”
My voice shook.
“Instead, you were here with my sister.”
I looked at both of them.
“You disgust me.”
I turned and went upstairs to pack.
Zion followed.
“You can’t just leave like this.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Watch me.”
Then he said:
“What about Mom?”
I stopped.
That sentence somehow made everything worse.
He seemed to realize it too.
His face changed immediately.
I turned around slowly.
“Did you seriously just use your dying mother to convince me to stay?”
“No, I just meant—”
But he couldn’t finish.
I left Zion that night.
But I didn’t leave Valerie.
She had done nothing to me.
She hadn’t betrayed me.
And I refused to punish a dying woman for something her son had done.
So I kept taking care of her.
Neither Zion nor I told her about the affair.
At least, I thought she didn’t know.
Of course, Valerie noticed something had changed.
One afternoon, we were sitting in her sunroom while I made tea.
She watched me for a while.
“You’re angry.”
“I’m tired.”
“You’re an awful liar.”
I tried to smile.
“I had a fight with Nadia. Just normal sister stuff.”
It was the first excuse I could think of.
Valerie studied me for several seconds.
Then she said something I didn’t understand at the time.
“Whatever happens after I’m gone, never let anyone convince you that kindness makes you foolish.”
I thought her medication was making her emotional.
I didn’t realize she was warning me.
Three weeks later, Valerie died.
After the funeral, I filed for divorce.
Zion didn’t fight me.
Three months later, my cousin called.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?”
She hesitated.
“I have bad news and worse news.”
I closed my eyes.
“What’s the bad news?”
“Zion and Nadia are engaged.”
I wasn’t even surprised.
“Of course they are. What’s worse?”
“The story they’ve been telling everyone.”
Apparently, Zion and Nadia had created their own version of what happened.
According to them, they never intended to hurt me.
They had simply “fallen in love.”
They had “handled things badly.”
Then came the part that made my blood run cold.
My cousin lowered her voice.
“They’re telling people that after you found out about the affair, you turned Valerie against Zion.”
“What?”
“They say you manipulated her while she was dying.”
