My ex-husband, Larry, looked extremely bored as he followed a hugely pregnant Trudy through the store. Trudy looked like she had stuffed a soccer ball into her too-tight mini dress. She had somehow managed to jam her feet into 4-inch heels. She made direct eye contact with me and seemed like she was going to turn the other way, when Larry spotted me and yelled a greeting across the store.

“Abracadabra!” I cringed at the nickname he insisted on using for me, despite the fact that I didn’t care for it. “What on earth are you doing in this store?” He posed the question as he walked towards me.

I was saved from having to answer when he got close enough to see my slightly protruding belly. “Oh.” He gawked at my tummy in obvious surprise as Court put down the tiny white and blue baseball uniform she had been admiring and walked up behind me, supportively. Larry continued to stare as he fumbled for words. “Are you…I mean, you’re having a…What…”

He couldn’t seem to formulate the question he was looking for. He was obviously shocked to see the evidence that I was pregnant. I decided to save him the trouble as Trudy walked up behind him, placing a possessive hand on his shoulder. I nodded in recognition of what he was attempting to ask and said, “I’m going to have a baby.”

He seemed uncertain how to respond. His eyes travelled from my tummy, to Trudy, and back again. I could tell that the wheels in his brain were turning. Rather than stick around to see what conclusion he came to, I waved at them both and said in a voice that I hoped didn’t sound too fake, “Nice to see you. Take care.” Then Courtney and I hightailed it out of there.

As soon as we were out of earshot, Court said, “I bet she’s gonna have some ‘splainin’ to do! Did you see his face?” I nodded as she continued. “He was always convinced that you had fertility issues that caused you not to be able to get pregnant during your marriage. Now that it’s obvious that it wasn’t you, he’s probably wondering if maybe it could have been his issue.”

Court was practically hooting as she talked. She had met me soon after I had been devastated with the unexpected deaths of my parents and the break-up of my marriage. She knew that my marriage had crumbled because Larry had cheated on me with Trudy. She obviously thought that Larry’s past mistakes might be coming back around to bite him in the butt.

I no longer felt any ill will towards Larry, so I said, “Maybe he and I just never quite clicked. Perhaps our bodies realized that we didn’t belong together, even if our brains didn’t.”