Six months after the divorce, I never expected my ex-husband to cross my mind again, let alone appear on my phone screen. Yet there I was, lying in a quiet hospital room, my body still aching, my newborn daughter asleep beside me in a clear plastic crib, when my phone began to vibrate. I glanced at the name and felt a strange tightening in my chest. Ethan Walker. For a moment, I considered letting it ring until it stopped, allowing the past to remain where it belonged.

But exhaustion has a way of softening resolve, and curiosity slipped through the cracks. When I answered, his voice sounded oddly cheerful, almost rehearsed. He told me he was getting married and said he thought it would be “polite” to invite me. The word polite landed like an insult. I laughed quietly, not because it was funny, but because it was absurd. I told him I had just given birth and wasn’t going anywhere. There was a pause, brief and hollow, and then he brushed it off, said he just wanted me to know, and hung up.