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His Automated Reply Cost Him His Wife
When I came out of the UCSF emergency operating room, I sent my husband, Ethan, a text. The baby is gone. Two words flashed onto the screen almost instantly. Got it. Staring at the cold, automated reply, I laughed. Three years ago, when the Marin wildfire had spread and trapped me inside a car filling with smoke, I’d sent him dozens of texts begging for help. *I can’t breathe. Help me!* *I sent you the address. Hurry!* *Ethan, I’m begging you…* He had replied to every single one with the same two words. Got it. Only later did I learn it wasn’t some driving mode. It was a Focus mode my husband, the Bay Area elite Ethan Ward, had set up specifically for me, a filter to keep him from being disturbed by my “trivial matters.” Every message I sent him was silenced, archived, and answered with an automatic *Got it*. My desperate pleas for my life were trivial. So was the child I had just lost. His time, his concern—it all went to a girl named Lena, the daughter of his deceased friend. Right now, he was busy preparing for the “Marin Wildfire Relief Charity Gala.” On the program, the names of the guests of honor were listed as Ethan Ward & Lena Price. And I, his lawful wife, hadn’t even been told. On my phone was the gala invitation he’d forwarded, a curt reminder for me to attend. I opened it and replied. Got it. Today was the anniversary of the day I had barely escaped that wildfire. And it was the day I decided to bury him, and our marriage, for good. … I returned alone to our home in Marin County. The house felt as hollow as I did, so empty the silence tightened my chest. Out of habit, I reached for my phone, about to ask Ethan why he still wasn’t home at three in the morning. But after Face ID unlocked the screen, that lifeless wall of *Got it* brought me back to reality. I scoffed at myself. What a pathetic reflex. Nearly three years, and I still hadn’t broken my worst habit: expe......