I went to the hospital to get my IUD swapped out—and found my husband in the prenatal wing, standing beside a girl whose belly was just beginning to show.
I opened my mouth, but he spoke first, perfectly calm:
"Since you've seen it, I might as well come clean."
"Lucinda's a college girl I've been keeping on the side. She's a month along."
"Relax. She's a sweet girl—she doesn't want your position, and she's not coming for your family."
"But I'm not letting my firstborn grow up a bastard."
I stood frozen over my IUD replacement form, my voice shaking beyond my control:
"So you're going to divorce me and marry her?"
He wiped the tears from my face, smiling as he spoke:
"What are you talking about? I told you when I married you, you'd be my only wife for the rest of my life. Besides, you're an orphan. Where would you even go without me?"
"I'm just saying—since you can't have children, we adopt Lucinda's baby."
"Five years you've had that IUD in. Five years you wouldn't give me a child. So I found someone who would. Can you really blame me for wanting to carry on the family line?"
He tore the replacement form out of my hand, expression unchanged:
"One child is enough for me. Just have the IUD taken out."
"Be good. I promise, you'll still be the lady of this family. No one will ever rank above you."
I looked at him for a long time, then did as he wanted and changed the procedure from a replacement to a removal.
"Don't bother."
"Giles, I hope you never regret what you've decided today."
What he didn't know was that the IUD I'd worn for five years was the last shred of dignity I'd preserved for him, covering up his congenital infertility.
……
I woke seven days later.
Something low in my abdomen screamed with a pain I'd never felt before—raw, gutted, *empty*.
I reached for it instinctively, but ice-cold handcuffs bit into my wrists and jerked me short.
Outside the door, Giles's calm voice carried through. He was on the phone.
"It's done. The uterus is out."
"Mm. For the adoption of Lucinda's child, it had to be done."
"Her? What's she going to do when she wakes up? She's an orphan. She can't exactly turn the world upside down."
Everything went white. Just a high-pitched buzz and nothing behind it.
My uterus… gone?
How could he.
I fought the cuffs until they cut—thrashing, wrenching, the metal biting deep enough to leave blood smeared across both wrists.
The door opened.
Giles walked in, saw the blood soaking the sheets, and didn't so much as frown.
He just undid the handcuffs, calm as ever, a thread of impatience in his voice.
"You heard?"
"My hands were tied. I promised Lucinda there'd only ever be one child—hers and mine. Taking your uterus out solves that for good. Cleaner for everyone."
I stared at him, shaking from head to toe, unable to force out a single word.
Tears spilled down without stopping.
He reached out to wipe them away.
"What's the big deal? It's one organ. You never wanted to have children anyway."
I used every ounce of strength I had left to turn my face away.
"Don't touch me!"
"Giles Gilbert, you animal!"
I swung with everything in me and slapped him hard across the face.
That single slap drained almost everything I had.
My palm went numb, and the pain in my chest felt like it was splitting open.
His head snapped to the side, five red finger marks rising sharp against his skin.
He hadn't dodged. The flush spread fast.
He didn't lose his temper. He just caught my hand. "If hitting me helps, go ahead. Hit me all you want. But once you're done, that's enough."
I opened my mouth, about to speak.
A small figure burst through the doorway with a shriek.
A crack rang out, and a harder slap landed across my face.
I fell back onto the bed, ears ringing, vision going black.
Lucinda Lambert planted herself in front of Giles, tears spilling down her face in that perfect, practiced way.
