Veil of Deception: The Replacement wife

Rings

Another three weeks later:
Alexander is out until evening something urgent couldn't wait and I've run out of ways to keep my mind quiet. The bedroom feels like a hospital annex, the living room too bright, the kitchen too full of memories of cooking side by side. I wander into his office instead, drawn by the tall built-in shelves that line one wall.

He keeps a mix of things here: dense legal thrillers, old leather-bound classic. I just want something to lose myself in, something that isn't my own circling thoughts.

Nothing has felt the same like everything is slightly off.

I trail my fingers along the spines on the lower shelf, looking for the worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo he always says I can steal whatever books I wanted from his office. It isn't there. I crouch lower, scanning the next row, and spot a slim folder wedged sideways between two thick hardbacks like it was shoved in hastily to keep it out of sight.

Curious, I tug it free. It's heavier than it looks, the kind of medical folder hospitals give you on discharge. My name is typed on the tab.

I open it the smell of ink fills my nose.

The first pages are familiar: surgical reports, medication lists, follow-up instructions. I flip past them quickly. Then the lab section.
Quantitative β-hCG: 48,327 mIU/mL
Gestational age by LMP and hCG correlation: approximately 8 weeks
Intraoperative findings: no fetal cardiac activity noted on transabdominal ultrasound
Diagnosis: Intrauterine pregnancy complicated by traumatic hemorrhagic shock → fetal demise
Management: Expectant; products of conception passed spontaneously during resuscitation
The words blur.

I sink slowly to the rug, knees folding under me, the folder open in my lap.
Eight weeks.
I was pregnant.
I was carrying our baby the night I was shot, and no one told me.

There's a handwritten note clipped to the maternal-fetal consult—Alexander's unmistakable scrawl:
Please do not disclose to patient at this time.
He knew. He knew, he told them not to tell me.

For over a  month he's known, and he's watched me wake up crying without knowing why. He's listened to me say over and over that something feels wrong, that I can't explain it exactly, and he's kissed my forehead and told me it's normal after trauma.

He decided I wasn't ready to know I lost our child.
The folder trembles in my hands. Tears drop onto the pages, darkening the ink.

I don't remember standing up or walking back to our bedroom. I only remember the moment my hands stopped shaking long enough to move with purpose.

I pull the overnight bag from the top shelf of the closet. I don't think. I just pack. Hastily throwing my clothes in the bag.

Soft leggings, warm sweaters, two pairs of jeans. The oversized Yale hoodie that still smells like him. Underwear, toiletries, charger. My journal.
I zip the bag.
I leave my wedding ringson the dresser too. Not forever. Just for now. Because I can't wear them and feel this alone at the same time.

My phone buzzes on the bed his name on the screen, probably checking in like he's done every hour since I came home from the hospital.

I don't answer.

I turn it off.

I pull on my coat, sling the bag over my shoulder, and walk downstairs. The house is quiet, sunlight slanting through the windows like nothing is wrong.

But Everything is wrong.

I pause in the kitchen, grab a bottle of water and the phone book to search a nearby area that has cabins for rent. I open his office drawer and grab a stack of cash knowing he won't miss it.

I needed Quiet. No neighbors.
He won't look there first or at least I hope.

I write nothing. No note. No explanation.
I just leave.

The cold December air stings my face as I step outside. My side pulls sharply with the weight of the bag, but I don't slow down. I walk the three blocks to the main road, call a car, and climb in without looking back.

"Northbound," I tell the driver. "I'll direct you."
He nods, unbothered.

I stare out the window as the city thins into trees, tears sliding hot and silent down my cheeks.
We had a baby.

Eight weeks of heartbeat and tiny hands forming.

Gone before I ever knew they were there.

And the man I trusted most in the world decided when—or if—I would ever be allowed to know.

I press my palm low against my abdomen, over the scar that's still tender my abdomen still aches.

"I'm sorry," I whisper to the empty space where they were. "I'm so sorry I didn't know you. I would have loved you so fiercely."

The miles roll by.
I check in at the office and ride a little further to my cabin I rented

By the time the cabin comes into view—dark wood against white snow, chimney cold—I'm hollowed out, cried dry.

I unlock the door, step inside, and drop the bag in the entryway.

The silence is enormous.

I light the fireplace with hands that won't stop trembling, wrap myself in the old quilt from the couch, and sit on the floor in front of the flames.

I don't turn my phone back on.
I don't know how long I'll stay.

I only know I can't go back until the betrayal stops feeling like another wound on top of the one already bleeding.

Until I can breathe without feeling like he stole the air from my grief as well as my body that night.
Until I can look at him and not see the man who thought love meant deciding what truths I was strong enough to carry.

The fire crackles.
Outside, snow starts to fall—heavy, quiet flakes that cover every footprint I left behind.

I pull the quilt tighter and finally let the new wave of sobs come.

For our baby.
For the marriage I thought was unbreakable.
For the version of me that walked into that gala laughing, hand in his, carrying a secret miracle neither of us knew.

All of it buried now.
And me—alone with all of it at last.