My Husband's Perfect Mistress Was All in My Head

Thirty-two candles flickered on Grayson's birthday cake. New York's top medical minds—heart surgeons, cancer specialists, department heads from prestigious hospitals—crowded our dining table.

"A toast to Grayson Morrison, the youngest department chair in Presbyterian's history!" Dr. Kenneth Walsh raised his glass. "Another cover of the American Medical Journal soon, I bet?"

Grayson offered a polite smile. "Those covers are for the old-timers, Kenneth."

Everyone laughed. I managed a weak smile, my grip tight on the wine glass. The expensive Chanel dress felt all wrong on me, like I was wearing a costume.

Behind me, Dr. Sarah Chen's voice carried, not quite a whisper. "Morrison could've married anyone. That Ashford girl from his residency came from a proper medical family…"

She noticed me listening and stopped short. But the damage was done. After five years, I was still just the restaurant owner's daughter, hopelessly out of place.

I slipped into the kitchen for a moment's peace. In the hallway, Dr. Martinez's wife was enthusiastically describing how her baby Amy was finally sleeping through the night.

The words hit a raw nerve.

Suddenly, I wasn't in our gleaming kitchen anymore. I was back in Presbyterian's maternity ward eight months ago, holding Emma's tiny hand, watching the monitors flatline. My daughter, stillborn. Her perfect little fingers would never grow.

This same hospital was where it all began. Five years earlier, I was just Evelyn Reid, sitting by my mother's side after her gallbladder surgery, when a tired young resident approached. "Excuse me, are you the nurse?"

"No. I'm her daughter. Thank you for looking after her," I replied.

He just smiled. "It's our job," he said quietly, and something in his tone drew me in.

After that, I invented errands to linger near my mother's ward, needing just a glimpse of him. Even the nurses started teasing me, saying I looked more anxious about Mom's discharge than she was.

When Mom finally went home, I should have vanished from his life. Instead, I waited three hours in the lobby after his shift.

"Dr. Morrison!" My voice nearly cracked. "Could I… could I buy you coffee sometime? For everything you did for my mother."

Looking back, I can't believe my audacity—a waitress's daughter with no college degree, asking out medicine's golden boy.

Against every unspoken rule of New York's social hierarchy, he smiled and said yes.

"Evelyn?" Grayson's voice came from the doorway now, concern lining his brow. "You alright? You look pale."

"I'm fine," I lied. "Just getting dessert ready."

We returned to the dining room, buzzing with talk of research grants and medical conferences. I sat quietly, lost in a sea of terms and politics I didn't understand.

"So, Evelyn," Dr. Chen's wife asked, her smile a sharp blade, "are you in medicine? Grayson's never said much about your background."

Eight pairs of eyes turned to me.

"No. I went straight to work after high school. My family runs a restaurant in Queens. I helped out there for a while."

"Oh," she replied, her tone dismissive. "How… practical."

Grayson stepped in quickly. "Evelyn is a brilliant businesswoman. She turned their place into a neighborhood favorite."

Forced laughter pricked my skin. They didn't need to say it: Poor Grayson, tied to this nobody when he could have had a fairy tale.

I saw Mrs. Chen whisper to Mrs. Walsh, both glancing my way. They probably had a whole list of my faults—my accent, my choice of fork, my blank stares at their inside jokes about hospital bureaucracy.

These women moved through this world of charity galas and conferences with innate ease. Even after five years of marriage, I still felt like I was following a manual no one had given me.

My chest tightened. Would it have been different if Emma had lived? Would having Grayson's baby finally make me belong? Or would they always find ways to remind me I didn't?

Around eleven, everyone finally left. The house fell quiet. I started cleaning up, collecting dirty glasses, just to keep my hands busy.

That's when I saw it—a small gift box left behind on the sideboard. The card read: [For the future little Morrisons.]

Hands trembling, I unwrapped it: a tiny yellow onesie, "Future Doctor" stitched across the chest in soft blue.

The air left the room. I could almost hear Emma's cries—ghostly, fragile, impossible.

Tears welled up, the familiar vise tightening around my chest.

"Evelyn!" Grayson caught me, his arms wrapping around my shoulders. The onesie lay crumpled on the floor. "Hey, breathe. I'm right here."

"If she were still here," I whispered, my voice breaking, "she'd be eight months old. Sitting up by now, probably babbling—maybe even saying Mama…"

"I know." His voice cracked. "I think about her too. Every single day."

Did he? He moved through life—work, dinners, obligations—with steady purpose, while I was barely keeping my head above water.

That night, lying in the dark, I couldn't shake the fake smiles and judgmental looks from dinner.

"Just admit it," I said suddenly as Grayson hung up his shirt. "Everyone thinks you made a huge mistake marrying me. Your doctor friends, your parents… they're all just waiting for you to dump the waitress's daughter."

He sighed heavily and sat on the bed beside me. "Evelyn, please. You're just making yourself miserable."

"What if you meet someone else? Another doctor, a surgeon like you. Someone who actually understands your world. Someone who could… give you children…"

"Stop," he said, taking my face in his hands. "Look at me. I chose you then, and I choose you now. That's not changing."

But later, as he slept soundly beside me, I kept picturing those women with their perfect hair and framed degrees.

I imagined her clearly now—this other woman. Younger than me, probably a pediatric surgeon. She'd laugh at the right medical jokes. She wouldn't need explanations. She'd wear expensive clothes without checking the price tag.

Worst of all, she'd get pregnant easily. No miscarriages, no heartbreak. Just a perfect baby with Grayson's eyes.

As dawn crept into the room, a sickening certainty settled over me: we were living on borrowed time. How long could I really keep him when someone better was surely out there?

I could almost see her walking the halls of his hospital, noticing him already, wondering why he was with someone like me.

I knew it, deep in my bones—she was coming for everything I had.