She left with cold gel still on her skin under her blouse and crossed the lot toward her Honda. Then she saw Preston’s silver Mercedes across the street.
It was parked outside the restaurant.
Through the glass she saw him in a booth with Tiffany. He was laughing. Tiffany leaned toward him, one hand resting theatrically near her chest. Then the server brought dessert. Preston lifted a fork, fed Tiffany a bite. She laughed. A second later, he reached across the booth and touched her stomach.
Touched it tenderly.
Rubbed slow circles with his palm the way Vivien had begged him to do for seven months and been denied each time with an excuse. Too tired. Too weird. Not now.
Tiffany, Vivien realized with a calm so sharp it felt surgical, was pregnant too.
Maybe three months.
The rain began as she stood there. She didn’t move. She watched him place the reverent hand on another woman’s body and understood, with a terrible clean clarity, that cruelty has preferences. It is not always that a man cannot give tenderness. Sometimes it is that he has decided you do not deserve it.
Three weeks later he came home drunk, called her a whale, and laughed when she flinched.
That was the moment hope died.