Page 5 of Wrong Marriage. Right Groom
That night she finally snapped.
“You’re still loving a dead woman,” she screamed, tears falling freely, “after making me fall for everything you are—even your darkness!” Her voice shattered.
“And now you’re dragging me into the grave with you.”
I remember staring at her in stunned silence. Loretta almost never raised her voice, let alone screamed.
And I had never been in love with Zara, my late wife.
What I could not move past was not love—but the way she died. The brutality of it. The image of it burned into me in a way I had never been able to escape.
“You think I don’t understand grief?” she continued shakily. “You think I don’t understand pain? I do, Rafael. But at least I’m trying to live through mine instead of worshipping it!”
Then she cried.
God.
Loretta hated crying in front of people.
But that night she broke apart right in front of me.
And something inside me shattered with her.
I crossed the room, grabbed her face, and kissed her like a starving man.
Like if I didn’t touch her immediately I would lose her forever.
She cried against my mouth while I held her against my chest until dawn.
I thought we were healing. I thought we had survived the worst of it.
Then she disappeared three days later.
No goodbye.
No explanation beyond those divorce papers.
No chance to fix anything.
I had not known she was pregnant when she vanished.
The realization alone nearly split me open.
The Bugatti tore through Manhattan like a bullet.
My mind kept replaying the same horrifying possibilities over and over again.
Had she gone through this entire pregnancy alone?
Did she have someone taking care of her?
Or had she been stubbornly suffering in silence the way she always did whenever she was hurting?
The thought made my chest ache viciously.
The hospital finally came into view through the rain like a glowing beacon in the darkness.
Every muscle in my body locked instantly.
