“If the baby looks like him, I’ll refuse it… I’ll give it life and refuse it!” Laura said in a hollow voice, her words barely above a whisper.
“It’s too late for second thoughts now, love. Youll have to wait it out,” the doctor concluded bluntly. “Unless you want to risk never having children at all.”
Laura stepped out of the consulting room and sank onto the waiting-room sofa, trying to steady herself. She wanted to crynot just from sorrow, but from the sheer unfairness of it all. Lifting her head, she caught sight of the autumn wind outside, mercilessly shaking the last clinging leaves from the branches.
For a moment, she felt just like those brancheshelpless, battered, and utterly exposed. This child, once so desperately wanted, now felt like a cruel twist of fate. Everything had changed in just three months.
Leaving the clinic, she passed a beaming couplethe husband wrapping his arms around his wife, both grinning from ear to ear. The sight twisted the knife deeper. Laura trudged to the bus stop in a daze.
Back home, she locked herself in her room for nearly an hour. Her mother, Margaret, pleaded with her to eat something, but Laura stayed silent. Defeated, Margaret retreated to the kitchen, sinking into a chair as suffocating quiet filled the flat.
Eventually, Laura emerged and sat across from her mother at the table. Neither spoke for a long while.
“If it looks like him, Ill refuse it… Ill give it life and refuse it,” Laura repeated tonelessly.
Margaret stiffened, her daughters words snapping her back to attention.
“Good heavens, Valerie! Have you lost your mind?” Margaret only ever used Lauras full name when she was deadly serious. “A sensible, hardworking girl like you, giving up her own child? What will the family say? Your colleagues? How will you live with yourself? And the poor childs done nothing wrongits the father whos the wretch!”
“Who cares what people think? Wholl even pity me?” Laura snapped, her voice rising like a trapped animals. Her wide brown eyes burned with fear, lips trembling, shoulders slumped.
“Ill pity you. And Ill help you,” Margaret said firmly. “I wont let you abandon my grandchild.”
“You can barely make ends meet as it is! What help could you possibly give?”
“Well manage,” Margaret insisted. “People survived the warthis is peacetime, for heavens sake. Its 1989.”
Laura exhaled sharply. Fear already gnawed at her, and the future loomed like an abyss. She had no way of knowing then that the ’90s would bring their own brutal hardships. All she knew was this: David had left her.
Theyd married six months ago after dating for a year and a half. Back then, nothing had hinted at the storm to comethey were young, happy, in love.
Laura remembered every second of the day David came home a different man. Hed tried to act normal, gentle as always, but shed seen itthe distance in his eyes, the way he hesitated before speaking. The look of a man whod fallen out of love.
Hed known she was pregnant. That was the worst partif not for the baby, hed have walked out right then. For a month, Laura begged him to explain, but it wasnt until he finally left that she learned the truth.
Shed spiraled into hysterics when Davids mother, Helen, showed up, weeping herself at her sons betrayal.
The story went back to their school days. In his final year, David had attended a youth camping trip where he met Emily. He fell for her instantlyspent two weeks glued to her side. They exchanged addresses, but when David moved flats, he lost hers. No letters ever came from her.
Eventually, he tried to forget her. But years later, he realized shed been his one true love. Then he met Laura, convinced Emily was in the past, and after two years, they married. Theyd even started planning for the baby.
Then Emily reappearedout of nowhere. She hadnt kept his address either, but knowing his hometown, she placed an ad in the local paper. David spotted it. He invited her down, even booked her a hotel room.
At first, hed just wanted to see the girl hed never forgotten. But the moment they reunited, it was over. The decision tore him apart, but he made it: leave Laurapregnant Lauraand run away with Emily.
At work, colleagues rallied around Laura. A new girl, fresh on the job, sighed wistfully, “A babys such a blessing. My husband and I have been trying for five years.”
“Exactlywith a husband,” Laura muttered bitterly. There was no joy in this pregnancy now, only the sting of abandonment.
At home, Margaret did her best to soothe Lauras grief. Then one day, Helen arrived, bursting into tears the moment she stepped inside. Shed truly wanted David and Laura to stay together.
She had no love for Emilythe new wife whod “stolen” David away. (Never mind that David had left willingly.)
Between the two would-be grandmothers, Laura found some comfort. But her deepest fear remained: what if the baby looked like David?
What if those same eyes, that same nose, those lipsevery glance a reminder of betrayal? That terrified her.
When Laura left the hospital, she hadnt expected a crowd. But there they were: Margaret, Helen, her closest friend with her husband, her older sister with a niece in tow, even her small team from work.
Everyone wanted to hold the baby. Everyone wished mother and son well. Back home, as they unwrapped the boy, Helen lifted him, smiling through tears as she whispered, “Spitting image of David.”
She thought Laura hadnt heard. But Laura had. She took her son back and said firmly, “No. His names John.”
Helen and Margaret exhaled in relief. That settled it.
Twenty years passed. By 2010, John was in his third year at university. At home, he doted on his two younger sisters, helping his mother care for them when they were tiny.
Laura remarried five years after Johns birth. Her new husband was a devoted stepfather to John and a loving father to their daughters. Laura adored the girls, but John held her heart in a way she couldnt explain.
That moment in the hospitalthe threat to leave him if he looked like Davidhaunted her. Just thinking of it chilled her to the bone.
David and Emily, the great love of his life, divorced after five years. Emily moved abroad with their daughter. David remarried, seemed content enough, and occasionally saw John.
Laura didnt interfere. She felt nothing for David nowno hate, no love. Just the biological father of her beloved son, John.
Thanks for reading, everyone. I hope you enjoyed the story.
