Like Love Faded In The Wind

Imagine my shock when I found out that my husband, a professor who had proudly embraced a childless life for half of his years, had an affair with one of his own students. She even had his six-year-old son.

The day I planned to report him to the university, Zia Thompson came to my door with the child and knelt in front of me.

"Maybe you and Zeke were in love once," she said. "But he's over forty now. Who doesn't want to have a child? A legacy?"

"I don't need a title," she went on. "I can give up the child too. I just beg you, don't tear our family apart."

I looked at my husband, who stood protectively in front of them. I felt terrifyingly calm.

"Cut ties with them," I said, my voice flat, "or prepare to be reported to the university. You choose."

Without a moment's hesitation, he tore the report letter into shreds. I thought that was his answer.

But on the fifty-second night of a bed grown cold and a home echoing with silence, he still hadn't returned. Instead, I received news that Zia was pregnant again.

She had graduated by then. The report I never sent no longer posed any threat to them.

Zeke didn't bother to hide his fatigue and irritation anymore. "Treat Zia and the kids well," he said, "or keep living alone in that empty house. It's your choice."

My heart was already a wasteland. "I have one more option," I said. "I choose divorce."

Zeke Maelstorm stared at me in disbelief. After a long pause, he let out a laugh.

"Is this fun for you?" he said. "Is divorce your go-to threat for everything now?"

I lowered my eyes. "No. This time, I mean it."

At that, his smile twisted. He yanked off the wedding ring he'd worn for twenty years and slammed it down in front of me. The crash of metal on wood echoed through the room, as if everything we'd once shared—our years of mutual care and quiet companionship—had shattered with it.

I took a deep breath and slid my own ring off, setting it gently on the table. The gold band was still well-kept, polished like new.

When we married, we'd bought three gold pieces—earrings, a necklace, and the rings.

To fund his research, I pawned the earrings and the necklace long ago. Only the rings had survived, the last semblance of dignity in our marriage. And now, I was giving it back to him.

Zeke looked at me with a complicated expression. He must have thought I'd scream, cry, make a scene.

And once, I would've. But fifty-two nights in a cold, empty bed had already drained all hope from my heart.

"Carrie," he said, voice sharp, "don't be ridiculous. Zia's already compromised a lot. I know you don't really want a divorce. But I can't abandon Zia and the child just for you. Dylan is only six. You grew up in a single-parent home. Can you really bear to let him grow up without a father?"

I stared at him, stunned. After twenty years of sharing a bed, he suddenly felt like a stranger. Even my worst memories—things I could barely stand to revisit—had become bargaining chips in his negotiation.

My mother died giving birth to me. My father blamed me for her death. My childhood was a kind of hell, enough to make me fear marriage, fear having children.

It was Zeke who broke through that fear. He told me he didn't like children either, said we were made for each other.

Back then, not having kids was almost unthinkable. But he'd taken my hand and eloped with me, to a city where we knew no one, scraping by through the hardest years.

Of course, no matter how careful you are, accidents happen. We'd had a child once.

Somehow, word got out. His parents found us. They promised that if we kept the baby, they would raise it themselves, and give us a hundred grand to build the life we wanted.

I nearly gave in.

But that night, Zeke held my hand, and we talked until morning.

"You don't have to care what the world says," he told me. "Just do what feels right in your heart. I'll always stand by you."

"However," I'd asked softly, "medical technology's better now. Even with complications, they can save both mother and child. Are you sure… you really don't want one?"

I remember how he nodded, then drove me to the hospital for the abortion.