I was refused to pick up my son from his school.
Reason; I was not mentioned as his mother or any close relatives.
“Is this a kind of joke? I’m his mother!” I almost lost my calm on the security guard. In return, he only looked at me with a pair of suspicious eyes before saying,
“We know who his mother is. She picks him up everyday. And, it's clearly not you.”
“I’ll let him go only when Mr. Jake Vance or Linda Vance come to pick him up, that is Leo’s biological parents.”
Linda Vance. Jake’s sister-in-law.
The blood in my veins didn't just run cold, it turned into shards of ice.
"Linda Vance?" I repeated, my voice cracking on the name. "Linda is my sister-in-law. She’s... she’s his aunt."
The guard didn’t even blink. He tapped the laminated emergency contact card clipped to his clipboard. "The file says 'Mother: Linda Vance.' It’s been that way since enrollment, ma'am. And frankly, the boy calls her 'Mama.' I’ve seen it myself for two years."
Two years. Leo had started at this prestigious private academy shortly after I finally returned from my extended recovery in the Swiss Alps—the one Jake insisted I needed because my "post-partum nerves" were too fragile.
He had handled all the paperwork. He had chosen the school. He had told me I didn't need to worry about the morning drop-offs because he wanted me to rest.
There must be some confusion I thought. But, I did not argue with the guard. I simply took a photo of the contact card and rushed back to see Jake.
How could he possibly make such a mistake, giving Linda’s name in place of mine?
The drive home was a blur of white knuckles and screeching tires. It’s a clerical error, I told myself, though the lie felt like ash in my mouth.
I slipped through the heavy mahogany front doors, my breath coming in jagged gasps. I didn't call out for him. I didn't drop my keys. Something in the suffocating silence of the foyer told me to move like a shadow.
The sound of a giggle led me to our bedroom. The door was ajar—just a dim light on.
“You called me to your den in broad daylight. What if your wife finds out?” Linda’s voice drifted out, provocative and seductive.
“She won't!” Jake smirked. “She is gone to pick up Leo.”
“By the time she returns, we will have finished.”
I froze. My hand, halfway to the door handle, began to tremble.
Jake and Linda. Together in our bed?
The world seemed to tilt on its axis. and I barely managed myself from collapsing.
“You sent her to Jake’s school?” Linda’s voice sounded, packed. “What if she finds out?”
“You removed her fetus and inserted ours when she was pregnant and let her deliver our baby. Are you really not scared if she discovers the truth?”
"Relax, Linda," Jake’s voice was smooth, the same velvet tone he used to lull me to sleep when I complained of headaches.
"Even if one day she finds out, there is nothing to worry about. She pours her heart into raising Leo… so that we can enjoy ourselves, isn't she?” He joked. And the sound of clothes rubbing against each other echoed in the room.
I could hear Linda giggling beneath Jake. Still, she was not satisfied. She began, “What if-”
“There is no if, Linda.” Jake shut her off, the voice almost sounded like a peck on her lips before he continued. “She is harmless now that she can't have her own baby.”
"The 'vitamins' the clinic in Switzerland put her on? They weren't for her nerves. They caused chronic uterine scarring. By the time we brought her home, she was completely sterile. She’ll never carry another child. She’ll spend the rest of her life clinging to Leo because he’s all she thinks she has left."
I felt the floor drop out from under me. The ‘miracle’ recovery. The daily supplements he insisted I take. The ‘post-partum’ pain that never quite went away. He hadn't been healing me; he had hollowed me out.
"It was a perfect swap," Linda sighed, her voice dropping to a low, intimate purr. "The nurses at that clinic were paid well. Stacy’s real baby... well, it’s a shame it didn't survive the 'breach.' But Leo? My Leo is Vance through and through. Your father’s millions stay in our pocket, and Stacy gets to play nanny for the rest of her life."
I backed away from the door, my heart hammering so hard it felt like it would burst through my ribs.
My recovery was a prison.
My son was the evidence of their adultery.
And my body was a graveyard they had built together.
I reached the foyer and gripped the banister to keep from collapsing. A cold, predatory fire ignited in the pit of my stomach, burning through the shock. They had taken my health, my child, and my future. They thought I was an empty vessel.
Just then the front door swung open. The school guard came to drop Leo home. I stood paralyzed as Leo ran towards the bedroom, his small face glowing.
"Leo," I choked out, reaching for him with trembling hands. "Mommy’s here."
Even if he was not my… biological son, I still raised him for three years before Jake made me reluctantly leave.
He was my son!
But, he flinched, stepping back as if I were a stranger.
"You're not Mommy," he muttered, his voice cold with a learned disdain that didn't belong to a child.
"Auntie Stacy is always sad and messy. Mama Linda says you're just the lady who lives in the guest wing."
“Because of you Mama Linda can't stay here. I hate you. I hate you.”
The boy I had bled for, the boy whose every nightmare I had soothed looked at me not with love, but with the same chilling apathy as the man upstairs.
“Fine” I spat, letting go of the last of the warmth my heart had,“Call Mommy whoever you want. I’m done.”
I let go of the last string holding me back to this home, to this family.
Now, I was done being the perfect wife and mother, this crown of lies- I will rather throw it away!
