The Professors Regret Begging for Forgiveness After I Lost His BabyChapter 1
The ninth button. I was sewing the ninth button back onto my husband's shirt when he fished a scrap of lace from the laundry pile and dangled it between two fingers.
"Did this shrink?" Thomas squinted at the fabric, turning it over.
The needle froze mid-stitch.
That pair was six months old. It hadn't changed.
When I said nothing, he scratched his head and shrugged. "Must have remembered wrong. Women's sizes are all over the place anyway."
Outside, the drying rack swayed in the breeze. Every pair of panties hanging there was identical—conservative cotton.
That scrap of lace wasn't mine.
My phone buzzed against the table. Quinn Barnes. My former senior from grad school, inviting me to join his overseas research institute.
For the 998th time.
——
*Ignore.*
"Professor Gilbert! Come take a picture!"
Hazel Fox hooked her arm through Thomas's and claimed the seat of honor beside him. She pressed her chest firmly against his arm, radiating a possessiveness that made my stomach turn.
My mother-in-law shoved her phone into my hands. "You. Take the picture. Then go cook."
Hazel sat dead center, flanked by Thomas and his mother. They looked like the perfect family.
"Isn't this inappropriate?" I turned to Thomas, silently pleading for him to remember his role. To set a boundary.
His brow furrowed. "Just take it, Elise. Hazel is hungry."
So I raised the phone. Maintained the facade of the virtuous wife. My finger trembled on the shutter.
The image froze on the screen: Hazel's head tilted, resting intimately on Thomas's shoulder.
As I handed the phone back, I saw it.
His palm. Pressed possessively against the small of her back.
I had always believed that as a professor at A University, Thomas Gilbert would have boundaries. Integrity.
The man before me felt like a stranger.
Earlier, a student had approached me, eager to discuss new material science findings. Hazel had cut in with a sneer. "Are you stupid? The Professor's wife is just a housewife. What would she know about that?"
Three years ago, I was a specially appointed professor at that same university. Many of the students in this room had once attended my lectures.
Not a single one spoke up for me.
Thomas had merely smiled, tacitly allowing the ridicule.