Elias had heard her. All the color had completely drained from his face, leaving him looking as pale as the hospital sheets. Tears were silently streaming down his face, his hands covering his mouth as a stifled sob shook his shoulders. The pieces fell violently into place.

The sudden disappearance. The lack of a fight. The disconnected number. He hadn’t just fallen out of love or gotten cold feet.

He had been backed into a corner by a toxic ex-wife who used his living child as a pawn, forcing him to choose between the daughter he had raised and the woman he was planning to marry. He had chosen Lily. He had sacrificed us to keep her.

My heart, which I thought had hardened to stone when it came to Elias, cracked open. The anger that had fueled me for seven months suddenly felt hollow, replaced by a profound, suffocating sorrow for the impossible choice he had been forced to make in secret.

But as I looked down at my own stomach, feeling our baby kick against my ribs, reality grounded me. He had made his choice to protect his child. But in doing so, he had completely abandoned me to protect mine alone. I turned back to Lily.

I didn’t let my hands shake. I didn’t let a single tear fall. I meticulously finished placing every single stitch, bandaged her arm with precise care, and gave her a brave sticker. “You did a great job, Lily,” I whispered to her. I stripped off my gloves and tossed them in the biohazard bin.