“My baby… My baby…”
“My stomach hurts…”
As my groom ran off with his first love, my cries
turned my wedding into a farce. Both families
cursed Mark’s name as they rushed me to the
hospital.
The ER doctor’s face paled. As they wheeled
me into surgery, I heard shouts for consults: miscarriage, hemorrhage. The consent forms
came, but there was no one to sign them.
I clung to consciousness, dialing Mark’s number
over and over. Friends and family, aware of the situation, tried him too. He didn’t answer. Just
<
11:41
as I was fading, a text message arrived:
“Wendy, stop calling. Tell everyone to stop.
You’re upsetting Sarah. I won’t have it.”
Upsetting… Sarah…
Our baby was dying, I was dying, and he was
worried about Sarah’s feelings.
62
Let me die, then. My heart was dead already. I
let the medical staff take over. My last memory
was the doctor yelling, “That son of a bitch! Get
her into surgery! I’ll take responsibility…”
Days later, I sat at home, numb and hollowed
out. Mark walked in, suit jacket slung over his
arm, kicking off his shoes and collapsing onto
the sofa. “Get me some water for my feet.”
I didn’t move. I just watched him. He closed his
eyes, waiting for a response that didn’t come.
<
He rubbed his temples. “I’m exhausted. Don’t
make this harder than it has to be. Be
reasonable.”
Before, I would have rushed to his side,
massaging his shoulders, offering comfort.
Now, I felt nothing but a cold emptiness. “Mark,” I said quietly, “let’s get a divorce. You’re tired, and so am I.”
I regretted getting legally married first. Without that certificate, there would have been no wedding, no humiliating concessions on my part, no… I touched my stomach. It was empty, like a piece of my heart had been carved out.
Mark’s hand froze. He opened his eyes, his gaze icy. “Wendy, do you think this is funny?”
“Is Sarah a patient? Then why are you making things difficult for her? Do you even know that if the cut had been half a millimeter deeper, she could have died? How can you be so cold?”
<
I scoffed. He’d said similar things countless
times. I knew them by heart.
“Oh really? So? Did she die? Last time? The
time before that? Did she ever actually die?”
Any sympathy I’d had was gone, replaced by
disgust. Sympathy for her? Who had sympathy
for me?
Since Sarah’s “illness,” she’d treated my
husband like her personal property, flaunting it
in my face. She wanted everything I had, and
then some.
It started with small things – Valentine’s Day
gifts, flowers, chocolates, cards. She’d accuse
Mark of cheating on her, of not loving her, in
public. Mark, panicked, would give her the gifts
he’d bought for me to appease her. He’d swear
his devotion, and she’d drag him home,
satisfied. That Valentine’s Day, I sat alone in a hotel room while my husband consoled another woman. Back then, Mark still felt guilty. He’d
<
11:41
showed up the next morning with flowers, a pathetic apology. He’d said she was sick, that he’d leave her when she got better. I believed him. That belief cost me everything. I gave in, inch by inch, until I had nothing left to give. I even started to gaslight myself,
