Chapter 4What We Lost

When Philip came home, he stared at my diagnosis report for a long time.

Before bed, I overheard him making a call to his mother.

The next morning, my in-laws were at the door with suitcases. Philip, who hadn’t left for work yet, spent a while explaining things to them.

After he left, my mother-in-law, for once, didn’t give me the cold shoulder. “Mia, why don’t you go get some more sleep? Your father and I have it handled for the month. If you think we’re doing okay, we can keep helping. If not, we can trade off with your parents. We’ll all learn together. We won’t let you carry this all by yourself again.”

That morning, just as he did with Serena, Leo put on his best behavior for his grandparents. While I caught up on sleep, he only cried once. A world of difference from when I was alone with him.

On my way to the bathroom, I overheard my in-laws talking in the study.

“Our grandson isn’t nearly as difficult as Mia makes him out to be,” my mother-in-law whispered. “Do you think maybe she’s just not good at this? That she’s run herself ragged for no reason?”

My father-in-law shushed her, telling her to just focus on helping.

But she wasn’t done. “And that doctor’s report… is it even real? You don’t think she’s fooling our son, do you? It’s one thing for Mia to be ambitious, but if she’s pulling a stunt like this just to get back to work, I won’t let her get away with it!”

I slipped back into my room and picked up my phone, my fingers hovering over the screen, about to ask my friend for an update. Just then, a message from him popped up with a link.

【Mia, the baby isn't yours. But he is biologically related to the other two samples.】

The phone felt like a block of ice in my hand. The heart that had been suspended in anxiety for the past twenty-four hours plummeted into a black abyss.

My hands trembled as I clicked the link.

I read the conclusions of the three reports over and over and over again. The names on the sample bags were in my own handwriting. And my friend was meticulous; with him watching over the process, there was zero chance of a mix-up.

So it was true. The man I had loved for years and the woman I had grown up with, my best friend, had betrayed me in the most intimate way possible.

And I, like an idiot, had given up my promising career, sacrificed my health, and poured every ounce of my being into raising their child.

Then where was my baby?

During the months I spent in a sleep-deprived haze caring for Leo, was my child warm? Was my child fed?

My child.

Was she even alive?

When you’re hit with the purest form of sorrow, you can’t even make a sound. I pounded on my chest, trying to force air into my lungs, as tears fell, hot and silent, onto my shirt.

After nearly half an hour of suffocating grief, I started making calls. First to a few of my most trusted friends.

Then, I called the police.

When I finally emerged from my room, my eyes were swollen and red. My mother-in-law started to say something but stopped when she saw my face. She shot a look at my father-in-law, then sat next to me, bouncing Leo on her knee.

“Mia, look how good Leo’s been all morning. Here, you hold him.”

The moment my eyes met Leo’s, his smug little voice filled my head.

【You hold me, I dare you. I’ll scream my head off. I love watching you panic!】

I ignored him, staring blankly into the middle distance as if I hadn’t heard a thing.

My friends arrived quickly. My in-laws, though confused by the sudden crowd, bustled around, offering everyone water. But their hospitality vanished when the next person to walk through the door was Philip, who should have been at the office. My mother-in-law’s face soured.

“Mia, what is so important that you had to drag Philip out of work?”

As she was complaining, the doorbell rang again.

This time, it was the police. My friends remained calm, but my in-laws and Philip all wore varying expressions of shock and alarm.

“First you call all your friends, and now the police? What the hell are you doing, Mia?” Philip’s voice was low and furious.

I finally looked at him, and my own voice came out, each word a shard of ice.

“Where is my child? The baby I gave birth to. What did you do with her?”