Only me, sitting alone in the wheelchair.

Inside the room, Nolan was tenderly coaching Renee on how to hold the baby. The three of them framed together made a picture so harmonious it hurt to look at.

I ran my hand over my own belly, empty now, laced with stretch marks, the loose skin still sagging from the delivery.

"Let's go," I told the nurse.

"Are you really going to... leave the baby here?" the nurse asked, unable to believe it.

I looked at my phone's lock screen, at the photo of the cozy little nursery I'd decorated with my own hands, and gave a bitter little laugh.

"They won't let me take her."

A family passing by peered through the crack in the door, murmuring with envy.

"That mom's so lucky. Her husband looks so considerate, treats her like a queen."

"Right? This VIP suite must run a few thousand a day. Same kind of people, completely different luck."

Another family member's eyes settled on me, full of pity.

"Look at that one. Had her baby all by herself. Her face is white as a sheet."

I swallowed the sourness rising in my throat and repeated to the nurse.

"Please, take me to the farthest standard room. As far as possible."

I'd barely settled into the room they'd scrambled to free up when Nolan's message came through.

"Are you done throwing your fit? Get back here already. Don't put Renee under any stress."

I stared at the message, shaking with rage.

"Nolan, I'm done with this marriage."

I was about to send it when a group chat popped up, filling the screen. The family group chat.

Renee had posted nine photos in a row.

One of her kissing my daughter's forehead.

One of her and Nolan with their heads pressed together, playing with the baby.

The caption read: "Blessed with a baby girl. Mother and daughter both doing well."

The chat exploded in an instant.

Nolan's aunt: "Oh my, so Renee's official now?"

Nolan's cousin: "Congrats to my brother and his wife! Oh, wait—congrats to the godmother!"

Nolan's mother went straight for a big cash gift, addressed specifically to Renee.

"Renee's worked so hard. This godmother cares more than the real mom."

I couldn't hold back anymore, and I fired off one line in the chat.

"Do you all think this is funny? I'm the child's mother!"

The next second, a notice popped up on the screen.

【Group admin Nolan has muted all members.】

Nolan's call came chasing right after.

"Prudence, what the hell has gotten into you?"

"Delete that line you just posted, and then apologize to the relatives."

His talent for turning black into white made me laugh in disbelief.

"Apologize? I just came back from the brink of death. Why should I apologize?"

"Is it because I won't hand over my newborn daughter for your childhood sweetheart to play with like a toy? Or because I interrupted your happy little family fantasy?"

My voice trembled with fury.

On the other end, Nolan only sighed, his tone dripping with weary patience.

"I knew it. Your postpartum hormones are all over the place, you're too sensitive."

"Renee meant well. She just wanted to share the load, take some weight off you. And the relatives were only joking. Do you really have to blow it up like this?"

"Do you have any idea? The second you posted that line, you scared Renee into tears."

He paused, then said in a commanding tone.

"Now, right now, send a cash gift in the group. Say you were just in a bad mood and misspoke."

"Then publicly acknowledge that Renee is the child's godmother. And we'll call this whole thing over."

So it turned out that in his heart, a single tear from Renee weighed far more than the ten months I carried this child, more than the life-and-death ordeal I'd just been through.

I gathered every ounce of strength I had and choked out the two words.

"Divorce."

“Nolan, let's get a divorce. I keep the baby.”

On the other end, a long silence.

But the next second, what came through wasn't his answer. It was Renee's fake, tearful little voice.

“Nolan, did I do something wrong…… Does she hate me even more now……”

Then I heard Nolan cover the mouthpiece, though his voice still came through clear as ever.

He soothed her gently “Don't cry. This has nothing to do with you.”

Only after he'd finished comforting Renee did Nolan pick the phone back up, his voice thick with irritation.

“Prudence, can you not go looking for trouble on a good day like today?”

“I'm warning you. Get back to your room right now and apologize to Renee. Don't push me.”

As if that still wasn't enough, he let out a scornful laugh.

“Divorce? You think I don't know what's going through your head? You just want to use the baby to twist my arm.”

“Let me tell you, you dare bring up divorce, and I'll make sure you never see this child again in your life. Can you afford that?”

I hung up.

One more word and I would have thrown up.

I dragged his number into my block list.

The postpartum contractions and the stitched episiotomy throbbed in waves, a reminder of just how absurd everything I'd just been through was.

“Honey, are you all right?”

The nurse making up my bed couldn't hold back. She'd heard the whole thing.

“That man is a real piece of garbage! When I had my baby, my husband was so worried about me he ran out overnight to borrow money and bought a whole hen to make me soup.”

“How can you put up with this?”

Her words pried open a memory I'd sealed away.

I thought back to that brutal car accident.

Both my legs had been shattered. The doctors said I might spend the rest of my life in a wheelchair.

It was Nolan who cared for me at my bedside, cleaning up after me, never once leaving to change his own clothes, for a full six months.

To scrape together the steep cost of my surgery, he even sold his family's old ancestral home.

The day I was discharged, he carried me on his back, stepping down the hospital stairs one at a time, and said in my ear.

“Prudence, don't be afraid. From now on, I'll be your legs.”

That devotion, that refusal to leave me, once moved everyone. It made me love him with my whole heart for all these years.

But this devotion, when did it change?

Maybe everything changed the moment Renee, under the pretense of being childfree, moved in near our home.

Nolan said she was lonely on her own, that we had to look after her.

So when Renee couldn't sleep, he could drive me out of the master bedroom in the middle of the night and stay up talking with her until dawn.

When I bled in my third trimester, he could turn off his phone to go see the northern lights in Scandinavia with Renee, leaving me lying alone in a cold pool of blood.

He could even take the money I'd set aside for my delivery and buy Renee a discontinued designer bag she'd been pining over.

Every time, he guilt-tripped me with how lonely she was all by herself.

Every time, afterward he numbed me with double the tenderness and remorse.

Living on my hopes for the baby about to be born, I compromised again and again, forgave again and again.

Until today.

I quietly opened my messages and left that family group chat that made me sick.

Nolan's icon quickly popped up with a warning emoji.

【You'd better not regret this.】

I didn't reply.

He thought I'd come crawling back soon enough, like always, wagging my tail and begging him for the baby's sake.

But he didn't know.

This time, I really was done with him.

I lay back down on the bed.

The tearing pain below, mixed with the raw ache as the anesthesia wore off, left me drifting in and out.

I opened my phone and, almost against my will, tapped into Renee's social media feed.

The most recent post had gone up ten minutes ago.

It was a video.

The caption dripped with fake sweetness: "First time being a mom, and I'm a little all over the place! Just helping my bestie carry some of the load with the baby. Don't get the wrong idea, everyone — I'm a committed childfree girl, totally selfless here."

I opened the video.

On the screen, Renee was wearing the nursing nightgown that should have been mine, cradling my daughter clumsily in her arms.

The baby must have been hungry, wailing her heart out against Renee's chest.

Nolan's voice came from off-camera, thick with tenderness and doting.

"Renee, don't panic, the baby's probably hungry. Try this…"

What came next turned my stomach.

Renee actually unbuttoned the nightgown and tried to get my newborn daughter to suckle at a breast that couldn't possibly have any milk.

At the end of the video, she smiled shamelessly into the camera.

"It really feels like there's a connection! Is this the soul-bond of a mother's love?"

A bitter laugh escaped me.

I, the real mother, was lying on a cold hospital bed, enduring searing pain.

And that thief was enjoying everything that should have been mine.

I refreshed the page, and Renee's feed had updated again.

One photo was of the pricey postpartum recovery meals Nolan had ordered for her.

Another was a solid gold longevity pendant charm he'd given her, engraved with the word "godmother."

And another showed the two of them standing together in front of a custom crib, laughing without a care in the world.

That crib, in materials and design, was far more expensive than the one I'd prepared for our child.

In the middle of the night, the baby must have gotten truly, unbearably hungry.

Nolan finally sent me a message.

"Prudence, pump some milk and bring it over. Renee's fed her all day and she's worn out, she needs to rest."

"Don't let your emotions get in the way. The baby's innocent."

"After you drop off the milk, clean up the VIP suite while you're at it. Consider it making it up to Renee for the fright. You scared her pretty badly today."

He didn't say a single word about coming to see me.

I didn't reply.

Instead, I took a screenshot of a corner from Renee's video and sent it over.

The image showed a baby garment cut to shreds.

I demanded an answer: "Why did you let Renee destroy the blessing gown I sewed for our child?"

I'd stayed up night after night making that patchwork blessing gown by hand, stitch by stitch, out of the softest cotton.

I'd embroidered a protection charm onto it, one I'd prayed for.

Nolan's reply came fast, and careless.

"It's a raggedy piece of clothing. What's the big deal."

"Renee said the fabric was too coarse, that it'd scratch the baby's delicate skin, so she used it as a floor mat. So what?"

I bit my lips until they went white.

"Nolan, do you have any idea how much that gown meant to me?"

I remembered how, when I'd first shown that gown to Nolan, he'd held me so tenderly.

My phone buzzed again.

It was Nolan.

"Prudence Fox, can you not be so petty? Making a scene over a raggedy piece of clothing?"

"Take a good look at how dirt-poor your family is. From the day the baby was born until now, not a single cash gift. If Renee hadn't been generous enough to buy the baby a solid gold bracelet to save face, you'd have humiliated me completely!"

I pressed on the screen so hard it crackled, nearly cracking.

"You know better than anyone why my parents won't come to the hospital, don't you?"

The message sent.

On the other end, a dead silence fell.