My Miscarriage, His Celebration

On our wedding anniversary, Liam was away on a business trip and didn't come home. I called him on video.

The moment the screen lit up, what I saw was Sophie Hale's delicate face, flushed red. She was wearing a loose men's bathrobe—I recognized it, the one I'd just bought for Liam last month.

In the background were dim, suggestive lights and a messy bed.

"Oh, hey Eileen," Sophie purred, her voice sugary sweet and fake. She didn't look the least bit surprised to be caught. Instead, she held up a pregnancy test and waved it at the camera.

"Perfect timing, everyone's here. I'm so touched." Sophie's eyes welled up with tears, her voice trembling. "Thank you for watching over Liam for me. He's been with me for ten years—and now he's given me a son."

I felt dizzy, my hand shaking violently as I gripped the phone. "Sophie, are you seriously bragging about wrecking my marriage like it's some kind of achievement? Have you no shame?"

"Eileen, how can you talk like that? You're so twisted!"

Liam showed up behind her, shirtless and hair still wet from the shower. He wrapped his arm around Sophie and shot me a glare, like I was the one in the wrong.

"You just don't get it!" Liam snapped at the camera, his tone filled with self-righteous "justice." "Sophie has stayed pure all these years. She's a perfect virgin! She was just telling me, in tears, that she didn't want to go through life without ever knowing what it's like to really be a woman."

He looked down at Sophie with tender eyes, then looked back at me coldly. "I just felt bad for her and helped make her dream come true, helped her become a real woman. That's what friends do. How is that so twisted, the way you make it sound?"

"What friends do? By hooking up with her?" I laughed bitterly.

A flash of anger crossed Liam's eyes at being called out, but he quickly covered it with even more vicious words. "And it turns out, this was meant to be. It was Sophie's first time, and she got pregnant just like that. And you?"

He snorted with contempt. "We tried for three whole years, did IVF three times, all failures. The facts prove it—the problem is your body, not me! Sophie's untouched body is obviously way better than yours, all worn out from trying."

"Enough, stop ruining the mood." Liam waved his hand impatiently. "Sophie made my favorite French food. She said she's tired of eating out. I don't have time to listen to you lose it."

I clutched the ultrasound report in my bag. Just yesterday, I found out I was pregnant. I'd specifically called Liam's parents over, wanting to share this good news with them.

But at this moment, after eight years of love and six years of swallowing my pride to keep this marriage together, I was finally ready to let go.