A suffocating silence descended over the cellular connection. It was the type of pause heavy enough to drown in.
“Coralie,” Levette finally murmured, her tone dripping with manufactured regret. “You know we simply don’t have the space right now.”
Let me clarify the geography of my parents’ real estate.
They resided in a sprawling, four-bedroom colonial. Landis occupied one room. The primary suite belonged to them. Two entirely furnished bedrooms sat gathering dust. Furthermore, they boasted a fully finished basement equipped with a plush pull-out sofa, a kitchenette, and a full bathroom. For a decade, I had happily slept in that very basement whenever Thanksgiving dinners ran late.
There was space. There was an echoing cavern of space.
“Mom,” I breathed, my fingers digging into the countertop. “I have three young children. I am just asking for a few weeks to find a rental.”
“You need to approach this with more rationality,” she scolded, her voice hardening. “Divorce is a catastrophic step, Coralie. Caspian is a phenomenal provider. Infidelities… well, these unfortunate things happen in long marriages. You are supposed to work through them, not run away.”
My husband had engaged in a protracted affair. I had secured irrefutable proof. I had not misconstrued a late-night text; I had uncovered a parallel life. Yet, here was my own mother, implicitly demanding I swallow the betrayal to maintain the family’s aesthetic of perfection.
