That evening, I asked the nurse to help me shower. It was a slow, painful shower, but a necessary one. I needed to feel my skin as my own again. Afterwards, I put on a simple but elegant outfit.
“No luxuries, just presents.”
Carol brushed my hair with a gentleness that hurt more than my leg.
“You look like your mother,” she said quietly.
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to open a door to tears.
Jessica arrived at the hospital to pick me up, and together we went to Helen’s house. She lived in an old established neighborhood with treeline streets, a doorman who addresses everyone by their last name, and neighbors who watch the lives of others through their rear view mirrors. The kind of place where people don’t have peace. They have a storefront window.
I entered the living room with the help of the wheelchair. Helen was standing there in a light-knit cardigan, her hair perfectly quafted, and that face of someone who has already decided to hate me before I open my mouth.
“Sophia,” she said, forcing a polite tone. “You should be in the hospital.”
“I have permission to be out for a few hours,” I replied calmly.
Ethan wasn’t there. I had made sure of that. I hadn’t come to fight with him. I had come to put his mother face to face with the son she had raised.
Helen sat down in her armchair and crossed her legs. The living room smelled of lavender and control.
“He told me, you’ve settled everything,” she began.
I looked directly at her.
“He told you his version of it,” I said. “Now I’m going to tell you the version from the paperwork.”
The word paperwork made her face harden. She hated when reality became a document. I took a thin folder from my bag. Nothing dramatic, just a folder and placed it on the coffee table.
“I won’t waste your time,” I said. “I just need you to know three things.”
Helen lifted her chin.
“Three things.”
“First,” I said, “he handed me the divorce petition in the ICU.”
She opened her mouth, but I continued before she could interrupt me. In the ICU at a moment when I couldn’t even get out of bed, he looked at me and said,
“I want a perfect wife, not a burden in a wheelchair.”
The silence in the room grew heavy. Helen blinked slowly.
“He wouldn’t say that,” she tried automatically, as if denial were a habit.
Jessica intervened with a firm but non-aggressive voice.
“Helen, the hospital logs all visitors and there are witnesses. Besides, the petition was signed at that exact time. Do you understand the moral weight of that moral?”
“Moral?” Helen repeated irritated. “This is a private matter between a couple.”
I smiled very slightly.
“It was,” I said, “until he turned it into a public humiliation.”
Helen gripped the handle of her purse.
“Second,” I continued, “he tampered with my health insurance.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“That’s a lie.”
