My husband would only drink an expensive goji berry tea, but every day he brought me a cup of tea from Blue Pop. Everyone around us called him a doting husband, saying he was willing to “go extra miles for love.”
One day, I found out he brought a cup of Sparkbucks's coffee for his first love, Seraphina.
I spurt out a joke: maybe I was too lowly to be able to appreciate the taste of anything so high-end.
To my surprise, Alric frowned and took it heart.
He snapped as he glared and said sarcastically, “Fina needs the caffeine to stay sharp at work. You're just a freeloading housewife—you wouldn't know what to do with a premium coffee anyway.”
Even our son Adam laughed and parroted his dad to mock, “Mommy's a greedy piggy! She always wants a bite of everything!”
My gaze drifted, watching the three of them across the table like a perfect little family.
Something snapped, I had enough. I told Alric I wanted a divorce.
Seraphina’s eyes welled up as she pushed the Sparkbucks coffee toward me.
“Lyra, I'm so sorry. Really, I didn’t know things would blow up like this over a cup of coffee. Here… you can have mine.”
Alric lost it. He grabbed the Blue Pop tea he’d brought for me and threw it into the trash.
“All this drama just because I didn’t buy you a Sparkbucks? Why are you so petty? If you don’t want the Blue Pop I bought you, then don’t drink it! Petty people like you don’t deserve anything more than plain water!”
At that, I set down the mop I was holding, untied my apron and leave the house.
“You’re right! I can’t handle fancy coffee after all! So, just agree to the divorce. Then, you can buy coffee for 'whoever' you want.”
——
“Lyra, are you seriously losing it over this?”
Alric gave me a look of complete disbelief. “It’s just a cup of Sparkbucks! You’re really divorcing me over that?”
“And don't get me started! I’ve been the one supporting you all these years. Even if we divorce, there’s no way you’re getting custody of our son.”
He rubbed his temples like he was the one who had been hurt, like I had broken his heart.
“Fina was just visiting. So I gave her a bit more attention, what’s wrong with that?”
“Besides, what happened back then wasn’t entirely her fault. You ruined her career, drove her out of the country… hasn’t she suffered enough? Can’t you just let it go?”
Back then, I married Alric because I was pregnant. His first love, Seraphina, who had always had feelings for him, was working as an OB-GYN. She volunteered to oversee my pregnancy, claiming she just wanted to help.
I thought she had finally let go of him. I didn’t want to put Alric in a difficult position, so I agreed.
When I was seven months pregnant, Seraphina came to me looking somber.
She pointed at the ultrasound and said, “I’m so sorry, Lyra. You’re not carrying twins. One of them… one of them isn’t even a real baby. It’s a uterine fibroid—it has no limbs. And it’s already bigger than the fetus. If we want to save you and the other baby, we need to induce labor immediately.”
I nearly blacked out. I took the ultrasound results to several hospitals. Every single one gave the same answer.
Grief-stricken and terrified, I finally agreed to the surgery.
Yet, during the C-section, they take out two babies—both fully formed, with hands and feet.
I tried to hold them, but they were barely breathing. They were rushed to the NICU right away.
I was supposed to have a son and a daughter. However, Seraphina’s mistake, my daughter died shortly after birth.
Meanwhile, Adam, my son… he was born with a congenital heart defect. To this day, he lives in constant pain. He can’t even run like normal kids without risking collapse.
I dragged my weak, post-op body to confront Seraphina.
At that, she knelt before me, eyes red, sobbing as she begged for forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, Lyra. I mixed up the ultrasound files. The scan I saw—it wasn’t yours. It belonged to another patient. I was worried… I didn’t double-check… I just thought we had to act fast…”
I thought Alric would be furious too. That he’d be on my side. Yet, he just lit a cigarette and smoked it in silence.
When he finally spoke, he said, “What’s done is done. We’ve already lost one child. If this turns into a scandal, Fina will lose her job. She worked so hard to become head of obstetrics—I can’t let her career go up in flames.”
