She Aborted Our Baby on Our AnniversaryChapter 1

The ninety-ninth time Elaine Henson stood me up, I went to the college reunion alone.

"Charles Delgado, how come you never bring our class beauty queen to these things?"

"What, still hiding her away like you did back in school? Afraid someone's gonna steal her?"

At the reunion, more than a few people asked about her.

I forced a smile that didn't reach my eyes. "She's swamped at work. Career's really taking off, you know how it is."

A chorus of sympathetic murmurs rippled across the table. Some believed it. Some didn't.

Honestly, neither did I.

My buddy sitting next to me leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Charles, are you and Elaine still not trying for kids?"

"I mean, you've been married what, five, six years now..."

I didn't follow. I frowned and cut him off. "What do you mean?"

"Elaine came to our hospital last week for an abortion. You didn't know?"

——

"An... abortion?"

The two words scraped through my throat like grains of sand, dry and raw and agonizing.

Mick Matthews took one look at my face and realized he'd said too much.

He scrambled to backpedal. "Maybe I got it wrong. I was pretty far away that day, might not have seen clearly..."

But I couldn't hear a single word of it.

I dug my nails into my palm, staring blankly at the wine glass in front of me. "When?"

"What?"

"I said when did you see Elaine at the hospital."

Mick knew no amount of explaining would help now. He pulled out his phone and checked his shift schedule. "Last Sunday, around two. I was just switching shifts."

"She came alone."

It lined up.

Last Sunday was our wedding anniversary. That evening, around the second half of the night, I'd called her.

She said she was on a business trip and probably wouldn't be back until Wednesday.

So her "business trip" was sneaking off to terminate the pregnancy. Wednesday was when she'd be discharged.

A bitter ache surged through me, squeezing my heart until it hurt to breathe.

Elaine and I had dated for ten years before tying the knot. Six years of marriage. For all six of those years, we'd been trying for a baby.

She used to cup my face in her hands and say, "Charles, I want so badly to have a baby that looks just like you."

"But why can't we ever get pregnant?"

Over those six years, we'd been to every hospital, run every test. Neither of us had any issues.

And still, no baby.