Skip to content “What do you mean ‘whose’?”
“Don’t play dumb, Anna. I had the surgery.”
“The doctor said it wasn’t immediate—we were supposed to—”
“Shut up!”
His voice cut through the room like a blade.
The table shook when he slammed it. The remote hit the floor.
“Who did you sleep with?”
“Michael… it’s yours.”
“Don’t lie to me in my own house!”
My own house.
The same house where I cooked for him.
Cleaned for him.
Took care of him after his surgery—changing his bandages, bringing his medication, listening to him complain like he was the only person who had ever suffered.
And now… I was nothing more than a stranger to him.
Or worse.
“Swear you didn’t cheat,” he demanded.
“I swear.”
He laughed.
Cold. Empty. Cruel.
“Liars swear too.”
That night, he slept on the couch.
I didn’t sleep at all.
I lay in bed, one hand on my stomach, whispering apologies to a baby who hadn’t even been born yet.
The next morning… he was gone.
Closet empty.
Bathroom cleared.
Even his scent had disappeared.
On the pillow, there was a note.
“I’m not raising someone else’s kid. Have a nice life with your lover.”
I stared at it for a long time.
Waiting to feel something.
The tears didn’t come right away.
Sometimes pain is too big to arrive all at once.
It came later… when I opened the closet and realized he had taken our wedding photo.
Not out of love.
But out of spite.
So I wouldn’t even have a single memory untouched.
Three days later, my neighbor spoke in a hushed voice.
“Anna… I think Michael is living with Natalie.”
Natalie.
Of course.
His coworker.
The one who texted him late at night about “work.”
The one who laughed a little too loudly at his jokes.
The one who once smiled at me and said:
“You’re so lucky to have him.”
Lucky.
I almost laughed when I heard that again in my head.
A week later, I saw them.
At a supermarket across town.
He was pushing the cart.
She was holding his arm, her nails perfectly done, her smile sharp and victorious.
She looked at my stomach.
Then into my eyes.
And smiled wider.
Michael didn’t even look at me.
Coward.
For a moment, I wanted to throw something at him. Anything.
But I didn’t.
I walked away.
Sat in my car.
And cried until the windows fogged up.
Then I wiped my face, looked at myself in the mirror, and said something that changed everything:
“If he wants to believe I’m a liar… let him. But this child will never feel unwanted.”
The weeks that followed were hard.
Lonely.
Heavy.
But I wasn’t completely alone.
My mother moved in without asking.
She brought warmth into a house that had gone cold.
Soup. Clean sheets. Quiet support.
“You’re not alone,” she told me.
And for the first time… I believed it.
Michael never called.
Never checked in.
Never asked if I was okay.
The only message I got was short and cruel:
“When it’s born, don’t come looking for me.”
As if I would.
As if I needed someone who walked away so easily.
Then came the day of the first ultrasound.
I was nervous.
Terrified, even.
My legs felt weak as I walked into the clinic.
My mom held my hand.
The room was dim.
Quiet.
The doctor moved the monitor closer, studying the screen carefully.
Then something in her expression changed.
She looked at me.
“Anna… I need you to look at this.”
My heart started racing.
“What is it?”
She turned the screen toward me.
And then she said the words that made everything stop.
“There isn’t just one baby.”
My breath caught.
I stared at the screen.
Trying to understand what I was seeing.
Two shapes.
Two tiny heartbeats.
Twins.