My Husband Got My Sister Pregnant (Her Marriage in Crisis #60)

1. Maria

— · —

Maria

I’ve been staring at pregnancy tests for three years.

Three years of hoping. Three years of disappointment. Three years of watching that single pink line appear and feeling my heart crack a little more each time.

So when I see two lines - two - I don’t trust it at first.

I blink. Rub my eyes. Hold the stick up to the bathroom light like maybe I’m hallucinating, like maybe the fluorescent bulb is playing tricks on me.

Two lines.

Two lines.

“Oh my God.” The words come out as a whisper. Then louder. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

I’m laughing. Crying. Both at the same time, which is probably not a great look, but I don’t care because I’m pregnant.

After the miscarriage last spring that nearly destroyed me.

After all those nights lying awake while Tommy worked late, telling myself next month, it’ll happen next month.

After starting to believe that maybe my body just wasn’t made for this.

Two pink lines.

And things had been - off, lately. I knew that, somewhere underneath the hoping.

Tommy coming home later and later. His phone turning face-down on the counter, the little flinch when it buzzed.

Giuliana dropping by so often she practically lived with us, always there when he was, always finding a reason to stay one more hour.

But I’d explained every bit of it away. Work stress.

A brutal quarter. My lonely little sister needing her family.

I’d been so busy praying for this baby that I’d stopped looking at anything else.

I press my hand against my stomach - flat, unchanged, no sign yet of the miracle happening inside me - and I let myself feel it. Really feel it. The joy I’ve been afraid to hope for.

I have to tell him. Right now. I can’t wait another second.

I hear the front door open downstairs. Tommy’s footsteps in the hallway - heavy, deliberate, the way he walks when he’s coming from a meeting with his father.

Perfect timing. I’ll run down there, throw my arms around him, show him the test-

No. Wait.

I want this moment to be perfect. Candles. Dinner. Maybe I’ll wrap the test in a little box, watch his face when he opens it. I’ve imagined this moment so many times, and I want it to be everything I dreamed.

I tuck the test into my pocket. Take a breath. Check my reflection in the mirror - mascara slightly smudged from the happy tears, but otherwise presentable.

Tonight. I’ll tell him tonight. Over dinner. With candles and wine and-

The doorbell rings.

I frown. We’re not expecting anyone. Tommy’s already home, so it’s not him. Maybe a delivery?

I hear Tommy’s footsteps move toward the door. Hear it open. And then-

A voice I know as well as my own.

“Is she here? We need to do this now, before I lose my nerve.”

Giuliana.

My sister.

Something cold slithers through my chest. Because that’s not how Giuliana usually sounds. Her voice is usually bright, bouncy, full of exclamation points. This voice is careful. Rehearsed.

Nervous.

I move to the top of the stairs. Look down.

And the world tilts sideways.

***

Giuliana is standing in my foyer.

She’s wearing a dress I’ve never seen before, designer, expensive, the kind of thing she could never afford on her receptionist salary. Her hand is resting on her stomach in a way that makes my blood run cold.

And Tommy is standing next to her.

Not surprised to see her. Not confused about why she’s here.

With her.

“Maria.” Giuliana looks up at me. Her face is arranged into something that’s supposed to look sympathetic, but there’s something underneath it. Something that looks almost like... triumph. “Can you come down? We need to talk.”

I descend the stairs. Each step feels like walking through quicksand. Like moving toward my own execution.

“What’s going on?” My voice sounds strange. Distant. Like it belongs to someone else.

Giuliana reaches for Tommy’s hand.

He lets her take it.

And I know. Before either of them says a word, I know.

“Maria.” Giuliana’s voice is gentle now. Practiced. Like she’s been rehearsing this speech in the mirror. “I know this is hard to hear. But Tommy and I... we’re in love. We have been for a while.”

The words don’t compute. I hear them, but they slide off my brain like water on glass.

“What?”

“I wanted you to hear it from us. Not from a stranger.” She squeezes Tommy’s hand. “We didn’t want to hurt you, but-”

“We’re getting divorced.” Tommy speaks for the first time. He won’t look at me. Won’t meet my eyes. He’s holding an envelope - thick, legal - and he extends it toward me like it’s a business transaction. “I had the papers drawn up. It’s... it’s better this way.”

I take the envelope. My hands are shaking so badly I almost drop it.

I open it. Pull out the documents. Legal jargon swims before my eyes, but one thing stands out clearly:

The date stamp on the law firm’s letterhead.

Three weeks ago.

Three weeks.

They’ve been planning this for three weeks. While I was picking out baby names in my head. While I was imagining how to tell him about the pregnancy. While I was believing in the life we were building together.

“How long?” My voice is barely a whisper.

Tommy shifts his weight. “Maria-”

“HOW LONG?”

“Eight months.” It’s Giuliana who answers. Not Tommy. Giuliana, with her hand still resting on her stomach, with that careful sympathy still arranged on her face. “And Maria... I’m pregnant too. About six weeks.”

***

The bathroom floor is cold against my back.

I don’t remember getting here. Don’t remember them leaving. Don’t remember anything between Giuliana’s words and this moment - me, on the floor, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember how to breathe.

My sister.

My sister.

The sister I raised after our mother died when Giuliana was fourteen. The sister I worked double shifts to put through college. The sister who cried on my shoulder six months ago about being “so alone,” and I held her and promised everything would be okay.

That sister has been sleeping with my husband for eight months.

That sister is pregnant with his baby.

That sister just stood in my foyer, held his hand, and told me they were “in love” like it was a gift she was giving me. Like I should be grateful to hear it from her instead of a stranger.

The pregnancy test is still in my pocket. I pull it out. Look at those two pink lines.

I should have told them.

The thought surfaces through the fog of shock. I should have screamed it in their faces. I’m pregnant too, you bastards. I’m carrying his child right now while you tell me you’re leaving me for my sister.

But something stopped me.

Some survival instinct I didn’t know I had.

Don’t give them this. Don’t let them have this too.

Because I saw Giuliana’s face. I saw that triumph underneath the sympathy. And I understood something with perfect, horrible clarity:

She would have loved it.

She would have loved knowing that while she was pregnant with Tommy’s baby, so was I. She would have loved the drama, the competition, the chance to prove that she was the one he really wanted.

No.

No, I won’t give her that.

This baby - my baby - is mine. The only thing I have left that they haven’t touched.

I press my hand against my stomach.

“It’s okay,” I whisper to the tiny spark of life inside me. “I’ve got you. I’ve got you, and I’m not letting go.”

My phone buzzes.

I look at it.

A text from Giuliana: “I know you’re angry, but the family dinner on Saturday is for Nonna’s birthday. Tommy thinks you should still come. It would mean a lot to her. We can be civil, can’t we? For Nonna?”

The audacity.

The absolute fucking audacity.

But Nonna Donna, Tommy’s grandmother, has always been kind to me. The only Moretti who ever treated me like family instead of an inconvenient accessory.

And something else is crystallizing in my mind. Something hard and cold and sharp as glass.

If I hide. If I run. If I let them paint me as the bitter ex-wife who couldn’t handle the truth-

They win.

But if I show up. If I stand there with my head held high while they think they’ve destroyed me-

I still have cards to play. They just don’t know it yet.

I type back: “I’ll be there.”

Then I turn off my phone.

And I begin to plan.