Page 47 of Anatomy of Us

I go quiet. It hits like ice water.

“Zoe?”

“I’m here.”

“You did it,” Yvonne says. “Really. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but when the shock wears off… you did it.”

I hang up.

I stay in the car, staring at the parking lot, trying to process.

Wesley will spend one weekend every other week with Nate. With his influencer girlfriend who needs baby photos for her feed. With the man who uses my kid like a weapon.

Even if it’s only four days a month.

And I’m still the one who decides his schooling, his health, his life.

Nate wants half and only gets a weekend every other week.

I catch myself in the rearview mirror and realize I’m crying. I don’t know if it’s relief or rage or pure exhaustion. Probably all three.

Tessa is in my kitchen when I get home.

I don't know how she got here before me. I don't know how she knew she needed to be here, but she is. Standing by the counter with Wesley on her hip and a bottle warming in the microwave.

“I know,” she says before I can speak. “Yvonne called me.”

I drop my gym bag on the floor and stand in the doorway like my body forgets how to move.

“One weekend every other week,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“That’s four days a month, because Friday barely counts. You hand him over practically asleep,” Tessa reminds me.

“Yeah.” I swallow. “It’s not… not what I want.”

Tessa sets Wesley into his high chair and crosses the kitchen in small steps until she’s right in front of me.

“What did you want?” she asks, and she rests her forehead against mine.

“I want him to have nothing,” I say. My voice shakes. “I want him to disappear. I want Wesley to never spend a night in that house with that woman pretending she’s his mother. I want—”

“I know,” Tessa cuts in.

“But I guess I can’t ask for that.” My mouth tastes bitter. “Because Nate’s his dad and he has rights. The system doesn’t work like that.”

Tears flood my eyes again, and Tessa wipes them away one by one with her thumbs.

Then she hugs me. No speeches. No fixing. Just holding me while I cry into her neck, full of rage and relief and everything in the middle.

Wesley says something from the high chair. Something that sounds like “mama,” even though it’s probably just noise.

“I’m okay. Really,” I mumble against Tessa’s skin.

“You don’t have to be okay,” she says, stroking my back.

“I know. But I am.” I breathe in and out, slow. “Or I will be. We won, right? In the end, we won. That’s what matters.”