Later, he really did make it.
And he really did give the best of everything to someone else.
I touched my swollen belly.
Baby, I'm sorry.
Mama can't bring you into this world to suffer.
The hospital corridor was cold.
The antiseptic smell crawled up my throat and sat there, thick and wrong.
I sat on the bench outside the operating room, waiting for the first surgery slot in the morning.
Notifications kept pinging on my phone. Spending alerts, one after another.
My supplementary card.
Lillian was using it, burning through the luxury boutiques that stayed open past midnight.
Bags worth hundreds of thousands. Jewelry past a million.
The charges poured onto my phone like running water.
Of course Joel had put her up to it. This was his way of grinding me down—making me crawl back and grovel at his little mistress's feet.
I opened the banking app and reported the supplementary card lost.
The world went quiet.
Just before dawn, my attending doctor arrived.
She looked at my pale face and let out a sigh.
"Miss Sullivan, have you truly decided?"
"Six months along. Inducing at this stage puts enormous strain on the body, and..."
She trailed off.
I knew what she wanted to say.