The day of my prenatal checkup, I discovered my husband had swapped my postpartum care package for a termination plan.
I was about to laugh it off as a mistake when he said, his voice perfectly even: "It's not wrong. And actually, there's something I need to come clean about."
"I've been keeping a college girl on the side. She's a sweet thing. Never asked for a title, never tried to take your place in this family."
"But she's pregnant now. I've already put her through enough. I won't let her child suffer too. I need to give that baby a legitimate birth status." I lay frozen on the ultrasound table, my voice shaking beyond my control. "So you're going to divorce me and marry her?"
He wiped the gel off my stomach, smiling as he spoke.
"What are you talking about? I told you on our wedding day, you'd be the only wife I'd ever have. Besides, your parents are gone. If we divorced, where would you even go?"
"I just want you to adopt Beryl Swanson's child. Getting rid of yours is just a precaution, really. I don't want you playing favorites down the road, neglecting the child Beryl and I have together."
His expression didn't change as he held out the surgical consent form. "Be good. I promise, you'll always be Mrs. Sanchez. No one will ever come above you."
I looked at him, long and hard, then turned and stumbled toward the operating room. "Don't bother with promises." "Dennis Sanchez, I hope you never regret the decision you made today."
What he didn't know was that I was the only woman on this earth capable of bearing a child for him. He had necrospermia. Without me, his bloodline ended.
……
I didn't wake up until three days later.
The first words I heard were:
"Mr. Sanchez, what you did this time was extremely reckless. Forcing the termination of an eight-month fetus was dangerous enough, but demanding a hysterectomy at the same time? Your wife very nearly bled out on the table."
Dennis's voice came back, indifferent.
"I promised Beryl I'd only ever have one child in this lifetime, and that child would be hers and mine. The safest way to guarantee that was to have Veronica Pruitt's uterus removed so she could never conceive again."
His gaze swept across the room and landed directly on mine.
Not a flicker of panic crossed his face. He reached over and tucked the blanket around me, then spoke with a tone that almost sounded put-upon.
"You heard that? Look, I had no choice. Beryl said adoption is only approved when the mother has a medical condition that prevents her from having children. Since you were already going in for the termination, I figured we might as well take care of the hysterectomy at the same time. Save you a second surgery."
He noticed the tears slipping from the corners of my eyes and gently wiped them away, his voice carrying a hint of teasing.
"I didn't expect a hysterectomy during pregnancy to cause that kind of hemorrhage, honestly. But lucky for you, the top OB-GYN I brought in for Beryl happened to be on standby at the hospital. You could say Beryl's good fortune rubbed off on you. Saved your life."
My whole body trembled. I gathered every ounce of strength I had left and swung my hand at his face.
The pain in my chest was so sharp it felt like something was being torn apart inside me.
"Dennis Sanchez, you're not human."
But my hand barely grazed his cheek. It didn't even leave a mark.
A small figure came shrieking across the room and slapped me hard across the face.
I fell back against the bed. The oxygen mask slipped off. I gasped for air, helpless and exposed.
I looked up.
A young woman stood there, tears brimming in her eyes, shielding Dennis behind her as she screamed at me:
"How dare you hit him! Do you have any idea he's been standing outside the ICU for three straight days waiting for you? If I hadn't brought him meals every single day, he would have collapsed!"
"This is the man I love more than anything, and you think you can just use him as a punching bag for your emotions?"
I didn't miss the flash of tenderness that passed through Dennis's eyes. Tenderness and heartache, all for her.
I'd seen that look before.
It was the same look he'd given me the night I drank myself into alcohol poisoning taking shots meant for him, and lost our first child because of it.
