"If you've got it in you, hurry up and give Cecil a child, and then his heart will settle on you all on its own!"
"Come by the old house tonight. I've got another fertility remedy for you to try!"
What my mother-in-law didn't know was that the car accident had injured Cecil's abdomen. The doctors had said whether he could ever father a child was anyone's guess.
But out of guilt, out of blaming myself, I'd kept trying to conceive all along.
Every strange remedy my mother-in-law dug up, I forced myself to swallow, all so I could give Cecil a child.
Just thinking about those foul-tasting medicinal soups she kept summoning me back to drink turned my stomach.
I hung up, stumbled to the bathroom, and threw up until the room spun.
Then I remembered that my period, always right on time, was already two weeks late, and that my lower belly had been aching for no reason. My whole body went rigid.
I registered at once and had blood drawn.
The results came back fast. I really was pregnant.
But between all the blood they'd taken and the fall I'd had, there were now signs of a miscarriage.
The doctor advised me:
"In your condition, it's best to be admitted so we can try to save the pregnancy."
I hadn't expected fate to toy with me quite like this.
The child's arrival made a heart I'd already made up waver again.
Just then my phone's photo album pushed a notification: a montage of on-this-day-in-past-years.
Some impulse made me open it, and the memories of a love we once had came back to life through those pictures.
Before Lillian came back to the country, Cecil and I had been joined at the hip. Who didn't call us the model couple of Southport?
He'd accomplished so much so young, and apart from not being able to cook, he handled every bit of the housework.
On holidays he'd prepare grand surprises, and in ordinary days there were all kinds of little ones.
He'd made me truly feel how happy it was to be loved.
But after Lillian came home, I learned that his love could be transferred.
The kind where, even when I was sick, one phone call from Lillian was enough to call him away.
Having seen him at his most loving toward me, I lived in dread, on edge.
We'd fought, we'd had scenes, all just to stop his love from flowing toward Lillian.
At the worst of one fight, he said:
"It's not like I've got anything to do after work, so why can't I go out with friends? It's not as if I'm like everyone else, with a kid to go home to."
If there had been a child, would everything have been different?
I don't know how I ended up outside Lillian's hospital room.
I looked down at my still-flat belly and thought that whether I kept this child or not, I had to let Cecil know.
But from inside the room came Lillian's coy little voice:
"Cecil, are you really going to divorce Doris? Or are you just saying it to scare her?"
Cecil scoffed.
"Who has time to scare her? I have to divorce her once, so she learns that away from me she's nothing, and then she'll come crawling back on her knees to beg me!"
The whole group burst out laughing, all praising him for finally growing a spine.
But Lillian said:
"Cecil, what if your wife sees you're serious and refuses to sign after all? After all, she's done so much to hurt me..."
"That's exactly why we have to divorce!"
"And when she comes back to beg me, she has to admit first that she's a dog! Then she apologizes to you and owns up to her wrongs, promises she'll never meddle in my social life again, and does a couple of dog barks on her social media. Then I'll consider taking her back!"
Applause broke out all around.
Lillian suddenly asked him:
"Cecil, and if Doris is pregnant? Would you still divorce her?"
Cecil said scornfully:
"Then for the sake of giving the baby in her belly a whole family, she should reflect all the harder on what she did wrong! Otherwise I'll just wait for her to have the kid on her own, and then remarry her!"
The next second, a message landed on my phone.
【Doris, are you sure you still want to come in and humiliate yourself? Unless you're actually pregnant right now. Maybe then Cecil would spare you another glance.】
Through the glass of the hospital room, my eyes met Lillian's.
So she'd seen me coming and said all of it on purpose, for me to hear, so I'd see clearly just how Cecil felt about me.
Watching Cecil carefully slice fruit and feed it to her, then gently wipe the corner of her mouth with that tender, doting look, I took a step back.
Lillian was right. I shouldn't go in and humiliate myself.
And this child shouldn't come, either.
I gripped the report tight, turned, and went back to find the doctor.
"This child, I don't want it. Please arrange the procedure for me."
