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“Yeah, well,” I said, my voice hardening, “you destroyed your family chasing that lie.”
“I know,” she whispered. “And I regret it every day.”
She wiped her tears and whispered, “I didn’t want you to see me like this, Charlie.
I was going to come back — after I got a job and looked… respectable enough to face you and the girls. I want to get back to my kids. I want to fix this, Charlie.”
I stared at her in silence.
Two emotions battled in my heart: anger and pity. She had left us in our darkest moment, but now she stood before me, broken and humiliated.
I wanted to scream at her, “Why wasn’t our family enough? Why did you trade your children for a fantasy?” But instead, a quiet thought wormed its way into my mind: “Am I being too cruel?”
I thought about the nights I’d cried silently after putting the girls to bed, about the endless days I spent picking up pieces she left behind.
I thought about how Sophie still asked about her sometimes, her voice soft and unsure, “Do you think Mommy misses us, Daddy?”
And yet here she was — this woman who had wrecked our lives — asking to walk back in like none of it ever happened.
But then I remembered Emily’s tiny arms wrapping around my neck, her giggle as I chased her around the house. I remembered Sophie’s pride when I showed up to her school recital, her little face beaming because “Daddy was always there.”
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