All Chapters of Obsessing Over My Ex-Wife: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

Sophia's POVBy the sixth night at my mother's house, I knew every sound it made. The refrigerator shuddered every few minutes, and a loose pipe ticked behind the bathroom wall. The floorboard outside the spare room creaked whenever my mother crossed the hall to check that I was still there.I had told Brian I came to rest. The truth was that I couldn't stand being watched by him, by Margaret, or by the person in that gray car. Out here nobody knew my face. Matilda had stayed behind at the Whitmore house, and the hired driver had left the moment he unloaded our bags. It was just Zoe, my mother, and me.My mother hadn't asked about money once since I arrived, and that scared me more than any demand would have. She cooked, held Zoe, and watched me over the rim of her cup like a woman waiting for a pot to boil.Zoe fell asleep early. I lay beside her in the narrow bed and read the messages Kennedy had sent that day. He only wanted to know she was safe. I typed an answer and deleted it. I

Sophia’s POVI had been sitting in the front porch for almost two hours, and I still hadn’t decided what to say.Zoe slept against my shoulder. The two suitcases stood by the door where the driver had left them. My phone was dead. It had given out on the highway, and I hadn’t packed the charger, because I had left my mother’s house in a hurry. All I had managed was a short text to Brian from a gas station at six, saying I was coming back and needed to talk.He hadn’t answered. Matilda said he was at work.“Miss Sophia, can I bring you tea?” she asked for the third time.“No.”“Zoe could sleep upstairs.”“I said no, Matilda.”She bit her lip and went back to the kitchen.I went over my speech again. I would start with the hotel. I would say I was scared, that I had made mistakes, that my mother was a greedy woman who would say anything for money. I would tell him I loved him. Only if I had to, I would say the harder thing about Zoe and Kennedy, and I would cry in the right place.I had

Brian’s POVI barely slept. Sophia’s crying carried down the hall until a little after midnight, and the quiet that came after it was worse.I kept seeing Deborah Bennett across the table in Mr. Hale’s office, her bag pressed against her ribs. I had sent her away with nothing. A few hours later she was dead on a wet road. I knew it wasn’t my fault, but knowing that didn’t help.Sophia came down to breakfast in black, her hair pulled back and her face bare. Zoe sat in her high chair, banging a spoon on the tray. When I walked in, she dropped the spoon and held both arms up to me.I picked her up before I could think. She grabbed my collar and said something that wasn’t a word yet, and my throat closed. The page in Mr. Hale’s safe said she wasn’t mine. The weight of her on my arm said something else. I stood there holding her until Sophia spoke.“You don’t have to.”“I want to.”It was true, and I didn’t know what to do with it.“The police sent the paperwork,” I said, once Zoe settled

Brian’s POVMason shut the front door behind him very quietly. Nobody in the room moved.“I’m sorry to walk in,” he said. “Your assistant told me you had gone home. I brought the file you asked for, with everything in order.”“Thank you, Mason.”“I can wait outside.”“Please do. In a minute.”I looked at each of them. Sophia stood with her hand locked on Kennedy’s sleeve, as if letting go would make her fall. Kennedy hadn’t taken his eyes off Zoe. Matilda was pale and still, and my mother stood three steps from the bottom of the stairs with my daughter on her hip.I called her my daughter, even now. I noticed that and decided to leave it alone.“Mom,” I said. “Please give Zoe to Matilda.”“She’s perfectly fine with me.”“I know. I’d like Matilda to take her up to the nursery.”My mother didn’t move. “A man I have never met has just said, in front of me, that he has held my granddaughter. I think I’m entitled to hear what he meant.”“You will, if it concerns you. Not here, and not with

Sophia’s POVI climbed the stairs slowly, holding the banister, and stopped outside the nursery door.I could hear Matilda humming inside, low and tuneless, the way she did when she was frightened. I waited until my hands stopped shaking. Then I opened the door.Zoe sat on the rug with a wooden spoon in her fist, banging it against a plastic cup. She looked up when I came in and smiled with her whole face, all gums and two small teeth. For a moment I could not breathe.“Miss Sophia,” Matilda said. She stood up too fast. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what was happening downstairs.”“It’s all right. Would you give us a few minutes?”“Of course.” She looked at my face and then away. At the door she stopped. “I’m very sorry about your mother.”“Thank you, Matilda.”She left, and I sat on the rug and pulled Zoe onto my lap. She smelled like milk and baby soap. She twisted around and patted my wet cheek with her sticky hand, and I laughed, and the laugh turned into something else.I cried quiet