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\u201cI\u2019m about to give birth,\u201d I gasped, clutching the mahogany edge of my parents\u2019 dining table as another sharp, stabbing contraction tore through my abdomen.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m about to give birth,\u201d I gasped, clutching the mahogany edge of my parents\u2019 dining table as another sharp, stabbing contraction tore through my abdomen.<\/p>\n
My mother didn\u2019t even bother to lift her gaze from her plate, instead raising her crystal wineglass and stating coldly, \u201cThen you had better call a cab because we are currently eating dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n
My father barely glanced up from his steak as he remarked, \u201cYou are thirty years old now, Sophie, so please figure it out on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pain bent me in half, and I dropped to one knee on the cold hardwood floor, breathless and shaking with a crushing sense of humiliation.<\/p>\n
Not a single person moved to help me while my brother continued staring at his food as if I were invisible.<\/p>\n
My mother reached for the silver bread basket with an air of annoyance, acting as though my suffering was merely an interruption to her evening.<\/p>\n
I managed to drag myself to my car and drove toward the lights of Mercy General Hospital, though my vision was swimming and my hands felt slick against the steering wheel.<\/p>\n
By the time I staggered through the automatic doors of the emergency room, I could feel blood trailing down my legs, and a nurse rushed forward to catch me before I hit the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow far along are you exactly?\u201d the nurse asked while trying to steady my trembling body.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thirty eight weeks,\u201d I whispered through gritted teeth, \u201cbut please, something feels terribly wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, the world around me dissolved into a chaotic blur of harsh hospital lighting, shouting voices, and frantic medical commands.<\/p>\n
I heard a doctor mentioning fetal distress as another voice instructed me not to push, while someone else demanded to know the whereabouts of the father.<\/p>\n
I tried to whisper my husband\u2019s name, but the sound came out fractured and broken, remembering how he had vanished three months ago without leaving a single trace behind.<\/p>\n
That was the very last coherent thought I possessed before darkness finally swallowed me whole.<\/p>\n
When I eventually drifted back to consciousness, there was no baby resting beside me in the maternity ward.<\/p>\n
There was no soft cry, no bassinet, and no pink or blue hospital blanket to be seen anywhere in the room.<\/p>\n
There was only a woman from the administrative office sitting quietly next to a grim looking state trooper.<\/p>\n
The woman leaned forward with a feigned, gentle expression and said, \u201cMs. Foster, before we discuss the status of your child, there is something vital you need to know about the man you listed as the father.\u201d<\/p>\n
A week later, my mother appeared at my front door and demanded, \u201cLet me see the baby.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked straight into her eyes and said with cold, dead certainty, \u201cWhat baby are you talking about?\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, a deep man\u2019s voice echoed from the dark shadows standing directly behind her.<\/p>\n
\u201cSophie,\u201d he said, \u201cdo not make this situation harder than it already is because we know exactly what you took.\u201d<\/p>\n
I had truly believed that waking up in that hospital bed without my child was the worst thing I could ever imagine.<\/p>\n
I was wrong, because the ugly truth waiting on my front porch was darker than any nightmare I could have dreamt up.<\/p>\n
My heart began to pound violently against my ribs as a man finally stepped into the warm glow of the porch light.<\/p>\n
For a sickening second, I thought I was hallucinating because it was Elias, my husband and the father of my child who had been missing for months.<\/p>\n
He looked thinner and colder, as if someone had stripped away the version of him I once loved and left behind a complete stranger wearing his face.<\/p>\n
My mother crossed her arms tightly and snapped, \u201cThat is enough of these games, Sophie.\u201d<\/p>\n
I let out a sharp, hollow laugh and asked, \u201cGames? I woke up in a hospital bed with no child and a state trooper questioning me about my husband, then both of you vanished.\u201d<\/p>\n
I continued, \u201cNow you show up at my home demanding a baby that I never even got to hold once?\u201d<\/p>\n
Elias flicked his eyes toward the quiet street and muttered, \u201cYou need to keep your voice down right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
That command terrified me more than anything else he could have said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat exactly did they tell you at the hospital?\u201d he asked with a desperate edge to his voice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey told me nothing,\u201d I snapped at him, \u201ca woman just said there was something I needed to know about you, and then my room was cleared out.\u201d<\/p>\n
I added, \u201cMy medical chart simply disappeared, and by morning I was discharged with stitches, an empty car seat, and absolutely no answers.\u201d<\/p>\n
My mother stepped closer to the threshold and pleaded, \u201cSophie, please, just hand him over to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m about to give birth,\u201d I gasped, clutching the mahogany edge of my parents\u2019 dining table as another sharp, stabbing contraction tore through my abdomen. My mother didn\u2019t even bother … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reddit-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4779,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions\/4779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redditlovers.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}