“The company is facing bankruptcy, the board has abandoned us, and my sons are gone,” Garrett shouted, his voice cracking. “Do not talk to me about a rug.”

I leaned forward in my seat, pressing the phone closer to my ear.

“You knew,” Garrett said, and I could hear the sound of papers being thrown onto a desk. “You knew Clara was pregnant when she left five years ago.”

Silence stretched over the line, heavy and suffocating.

“She was a distraction, Garrett,” Vivian said, her voice remaining perfectly flat. “She was a middle-class opportunist who would have dragged this family name through the mud.”

“She was my wife!” Garrett roared.

“She was a mistake,” Vivian snapped back. “A mistake I corrected.”

“And the divorce papers?” Garrett’s voice dropped to a whisper that sounded almost broken. “The ones she supposedly signed? The ones you handed to me?”

“You were weak,” Vivian said, the sound of her heels clicking against the hardwood floor as she paced. “You would have begged her to stay. You would have given up your birthright for her and those… those children.”