I had just finished my prenatal checkup when a local help-wanted post popped up on my feed:
"My wife finally got pregnant after years of trying, but the college girl I've been keeping on the side doesn't like the idea of me having a kid with someone else. How do I convince my wife to get an abortion?"
The comments were a dumpster fire of outrage. But the original poster had liked one reply in particular:
"Easy. Just tell your wife the baby's deformed and won't survive anyway."
I never engage with these things. I'm a lurker by nature—grab my popcorn, read the drama, move on. But this time, my fingers moved before I could stop them:
"How do you people sleep at night? Karma's going to destroy you."
The moment I hit send, my husband walked in.
Edward Abbott was the chief of obstetrics at the hospital. He was holding a test report, and his face was a mask of grief.
"Sweetheart," he said softly, "there's something wrong with our baby. Severe deformities. Even if we carried to term, the child wouldn't survive." He paused, swallowing hard. "I've already scheduled the procedure. Tomorrow."
1.
I stared at him—at the anguish carved into his features, at the report trembling in his hands.
My phone screen was still glowing with the comment I'd just posted.
Coincidence, I told myself. It has to be.
Edward and I had been together for nine years. Four years of dating, five years of marriage. Nine years of him anticipating my every need, sheltering me from every storm.
But the year we married, he was diagnosed with severe oligospermia. Our chances of conceiving naturally were almost nonexistent.
His mother had collapsed on the spot. The Abbott line had been single-heir for three generations—it couldn't end with her son.
Edward's hair turned white overnight. Literally. I watched it happen.
After that, we began our long, desperate journey toward a child.
As chief of OB-GYN, he threw everything he had at the problem. Experimental treatments. Bitter herbal concoctions that made him gag with every swallow. Acupuncture sessions so frequent that his back became a roadmap of needle marks, not an inch of skin left untouched.
Every failed sperm retrieval, he'd look at me with red-rimmed eyes and whisper, "I'm sorry."
His mother went to temples. She knelt on stone steps for an entire day and night, praying for a single Abbott heir.
When the IVF finally took—when the test came back positive—Edward, my stoic, unshakeable Edward, held me and sobbed like a child.
"Celine Fox," he'd choked out. "Thank you. Thank you for giving me hope."
"I swear I'll love you and our baby with everything I have. With my life."
He'd meant it. Every word.
When a stranger accidentally bumped my stomach at the grocery store, Edward rushed me to the ER for a full-body exam. When his mother's soup was a degree too hot, he blew on each spoonful himself before lifting it to my lips. The nursery was already overflowing—an entire room packed with clothes and supplies, every item hand-selected, only the best.
This was a man who treated legacy like oxygen.
This was a father who already loved his unborn child like breath itself.
He wouldn't cheat on me. He wouldn't throw away the miracle we'd fought so hard for—not for some mistress, not for anyone.
Would he?
I inhaled slowly and met his eyes.
"Are you sure there isn't some mistake?" My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Every checkup before this was perfect."
Edward sighed, his eyes glistening.
"Some abnormalities only show up as the pregnancy progresses," he said gently.
He held the report out to me, pointing at a line of clinical text.
"See here? Severe cardiac underdevelopment. Multiple organ malformations." His voice cracked. "Even if the baby is born, survival rate is essentially zero."
His hands were shaking. He looked gutted.
But my gaze had drifted to something else.
The scar on his right hand—a pale ridge across the web between thumb and forefinger.
The same scar I'd seen in the profile picture of the man who'd made that post.
Identical.
My blood turned to ice.
If I remembered correctly, that scar was three months old.
I'd been two months pregnant then. We were leaving the hospital after a routine checkup when a massive wolfdog—unleashed, teeth bared—came charging straight at me.
