“If the baby looks anything like himIll give it up Ill give it life and walk away!” Laura whispered, her voice hollow, drained of all warmth.
“Its too late for regrets now, love. Youll have to wait it out,” the doctor said flatly. “If you dont, you might never have children again.”
Laura stumbled out of the office and sank onto the stiff waiting room sofa, desperate to steady herself. A sob clawed at her throatshe felt betrayed, humiliated. Her gaze lifted to the window, where an autumn wind lashed at the last clinging leaves, stripping them bare. She felt just as brittle, just as helpless.
This childonce so desperately wantednow felt like a cruel twist of fate. Three months ago, shed been overjoyed. How quickly everything had shattered.
She pushed past a couple in the corridorarms wrapped around each other, beaming. The sight cut deeper. Head down, she dragged herself to the bus stop.
Back home, she locked herself in her bedroom for nearly an hour. Her mother, Margaret, pleaded through the door, urging her to eat, but Laura refused to answer. Defeated, Margaret retreated to the kitchen, swallowed by the suffocating silence.
Eventually, Laura emerged and sat across from her mother at the table. Neither spoke.
“If it looks like him, I wont keep it. Ill give it life and walk away,” Laura repeated, her voice empty.
Margaret startled, her daughters words snapping her to attention.
“Laura Elizabeth, have you lost your mind?” Margaret only used her full name when she meant business. “A hardworking girl like you, throwing away her own childwhat will people say? What will your family think? Your colleagues? And the babys done nothing wrongits not its fault its fathers a coward!”
“Who cares what people think?” Laura snapped, her voice raw. For a moment, she looked like a cornered animalwide, frightened eyes, lips trembling, shoulders slumped.
“I care. 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 can you possibly give?”
“Well manage,” Margaret insisted. “People survived worse in the Blitz. Its 1989were not at war.”
Laura exhaled sharply. Fear had already taken root, and the future loomed like a dark, shapeless shadow. She didnt know then that the nineties would bring their own cruelty. All she knew now was this: Daniel had left her.
Theyd married six months ago after a year and a half together. Young, happynothing had foreshadowed the storm.
She remembered the exact moment Daniel had come home a different man. Hed tried to act normal, gentle as always. But shed noticedthe distance, the vacant stares, the way his love had drained away.
Hed known she was pregnant. That was the worst part. If not for the child, hed have left sooner. For weeks, Laura begged for answers. Only when he finally walked out did she learn the truth.
Shed collapsed into hysterics when Daniels mother, Evelyn, arrivedweeping herself, stunned by her sons betrayal.
The story went back to their school days. In his final year, Daniel had gone on a youth camping trip, mixing with teens from all over. Thats where hed met Victoriafell for her instantly. Two weeks, inseparable. Theyd exchanged addresses, but when Daniel moved, he lost hers. No letters ever came.
Hed tried to forget her. Then, three years later, he met Laura. Convinced Victoria was in the past, he proposed. They married, started planning for a baby.
Then Victoria reappearedout of nowhere. She hadnt kept his address either but placed an ad in the local paper. Daniel saw it. He invited her down, booked her a hotel.
At first, hed just wanted closure. But seeing her reignited everything. The decision wrecked himbut he made it. Hed leave Laura, pregnant, and follow Victoria.
At work, Lauras colleagues rallied around her. A new hire, barely settled in, sighed wistfully: “A babys a blessing. My husband and I have been trying for five years.”
“With a husband,” Laura muttered bitterly. There was no joy in this pregnancyjust the searing humiliation of abandonment.
At home, Margaret did her bestcooking Lauras favorites, trying to ease the grief. Then Evelyn visited, weeping, begging for reconciliation. She couldnt stand the thought of Daniel and Laura apart.
Victoriathe new wifeearned none of her sympathy. Especially not after taking Daniel hundreds of miles away. (Never mind that hed chosen to go.)
Between the two would-be grandmothers, Laura felt both weighed down and strangely lighter. But one fear gnawed at her: What if the baby looked like Daniel? His eyes, his nose, his mouthwould she spend a lifetime staring at her child, reliving his betrayal?
When Laura was discharged from the hospital, she hadnt expected a crowd. Margaret was there, Evelyn too, along with Lauras closest friend and her husband, her older sister with a niece in tow, even her small team from work.
Everyone clamored to hold the baby. Everyone wished mother and son health. Back home, when they unwrapped the boy, Evelyn cradled him, tears in her eyes. “Spitting image of Daniel,” she murmured.
She thought Laura hadnt heard. But Laura had. She took her son back and said firmly, “Not Daniel. His names William.”
Evelyn and Margaret exhaled in relief. All was well.
Twenty years passed. By 2010, William was in his third year at university. At home, he doted on his two younger sisters, helping his mother tirelessly when they were smalla natural caretaker.
Laura remarried five years after Williams birth. Her new husband was a devoted stepfather, nearly a second father to William, and later a loving dad to their two daughters.
She adored her girls. But William? He held her heart. That moment in the hospitalwhen shed sworn shed give him up if he resembled Danielhaunted her. She couldnt bear to remember it.
Daniel and Victoria, the great love of his life, divorced after five years. Victoria moved abroad with their daughter. Daniel remarried, seemed content enough, occasionally seeing William.
Laura didnt interfere. She felt nothing for her ex-husbandno hate, no love. Just the man whod given her William.
