1 The birth of his son fractured something in me. They called it postpartum depression—a sterile name for the suffocating darkness that swallowed me whole. Many nights, I’d stand at the open window, pulled by the empty air, and every time, he’d drag me back. “It’s okay,” he’d whisper. “We’re here. We won’t leave you.” For three years, I fought not to hurt anyone. Until our son’s hungry screams echoed my failure, and I hid in the bathroom, swallowing sleeping pills. That day, his last thread of patience snapped. “Do you want to drive us all mad?” he shouted, pain cracking his voice. “If you didn’t want this baby, why didn’t you just die on the table?” For the first time, his gentleness vanished. He forced the remaining pills into my mouth. I didn’t cry. A cold clarity washed over me. I thought of the girl on his phone—the one he gazed at every night with a secret smile. Maybe she could be the wife and mother I could never be. And I… I deserved to rot in the mud. … The pills scattered across the tiled floor. Chiwetel’s hands were shaking as he forced the rest of them past my lips. I swallowed each one, my voice a strange, soothing whisper. “It’s okay.” But his eyes were a raw, bleeding red. Suddenly, the baby’s cries pierced the suffocating silence of the bathroom. Reality crashed back in. Chiwetel grabbed my arm, dragged me to the sink, his movements frighteningly practiced as he forced me to throw them all up. “Elara, I’m sorry,” he choked out, his own tears mixing with the bile and spit on my chin. “I didn’t mean it…” When it was over, he left me on the floor like a discarded doll, the corner of my mouth split and bleeding. He ran to our son, his hands steady now as he prepared a bottle. Since my diagnosis, Chiwetel had all but abandoned his company. Every moment was spent either tending to our son or trying to piece me back together. I had become the villain in his employees’ stories. “His career was on a fast track to the top, and she ruined it. Her and that baby.” “Every woman has a baby, what makes her so special? Just because she’s the boss’s wife, she gets to have a breakdown?” “If it weren’t for Miss Lena holding things down at the office, she would’ve bankrupted the whole family by now.” … Lena. That was the girl from the phone. The girl whose messages he waited for every night. As if on cue, the doorbell rang. When Lena appeared in the doorway, a flicker of guilt crossed Chiwetel’s face. But she only had eyes for him. She looked at him with such profound sympathy, her own eyes welling with tears as she walked inside. “Elara, it’s just a baby,” she said, her voice trembling with manufactured pity. “Don’t you see what you’re doing to him? He’s on the verge of a breakdown because of you. When are you going to stop making his life a living hell? Just let him go, can’t you?” My hands clenched into fists. A wave of panic crashed over me, a suffocating pressure clamping down on my throat. Seeing my distress, Chiwetel reflexively reached for my anti-depressants. But before he could hand them to me, Lena grabbed his arm. The pills scattered across the floor, useless. “Mrs. Archer,” she said, her voice dripping with condescending sweetness. “Please, stop with the drama. If you won’t take care of Chiwetel, I will.” She was about to turn and run off in a flurry of righteous tears when the baby started to wail, his skin flushing a feverish red. In an instant, they were a team. He dressed the baby while she put on his tiny shoes, moving with a seamless chemistry, a perfect, painful picture of a family. I instinctively stood to take my son, but Chiwetel gently, silently, pushed me away. He was right. I wasn’t a fit mother. I was the one who needed to be taken care of. I let my hands fall to my sides. As Chiwetel walked out the door, the last look he gave me was one of profound, bottomless disappointment. Suddenly, I remembered. His doctor friend from overseas had given him something. A poison that offered a three-day release. He had hidden it, a secret break-glass-in-case-of-emergency I was never meant to find. I tore the apartment apart until I found the small, unassuming vial. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, I swallowed it. A fiery path burned its way down my throat, and my life began to flash before my eyes. Three years ago. Seven rounds of IVF. More needles than meals, more hormones than water. The day of the delivery, Chiwetel had assembled the city’s top medical team. I was on that table for eight hours, the contractions ripping me apart, tearing me to the edge of sanity. And outside the door, I could hear his raw, terrified scream. “If you can only save one, you save my wife! You hear me? You save Elara!” It took thirteen hours, but I gave him a son. But the baby didn't bring relief. He brought the abyss. His cries, my mother’s worsening illness… every day was a new kind of agony. Chiwetel was my rock, running between my mother’s hospital bed and our home, taking care of all of us. But I saw him, hiding on the balcony late one night, smoking a cigarette and crying, his body shaking with silent, racking sobs. That night, Chiwetel didn’t come home. I opened Lena’s social media. There it was. A live photo. A tangle of sheets, his hand intertwined with hers, dazzling fireworks exploding outside the floor-to-ceiling window. In a bassinet nearby, our son was sleeping peacefully. And in the background audio, I could hear Chiwetel’s ragged, breathless voice. “I’ve been suffocating for so long… Thank you, Lena. Thank you for letting me feel alive again, just for a little while.” That’s when I saw it. The fresh ink on her shoulder: Chiwetel. And on his wrist: Lily. Lily. The name he’d been whispering in his sleep… it wasn't ‘Ellie,’ my nickname. It was ‘Lily.’ I touched my own numb face, the tears arriving before the pain. The darkness churned inside me, and with a trembling hand, I swallowed a handful of painkillers, anything to stop the feeling. A thousand tiny needles pricked at the lining of my stomach, and I tasted blood. Just then, my phone rang. It was the hospital. My mother was dead. I stumbled into the hospital, my body shaking uncontrollably. “How… how could this happen?” The doctor sighed, his face weary. “It was a sudden heart attack, Mrs. Archer. We did everything we could, but we couldn't bring her back.” I held my mother’s cold hand, the tears a river that would never run dry. On the edge of a complete breakdown, I dialed Chiwetel’s number. Again and again. No answer. The cold, robotic voicemail was like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. He had promised. He said my number was set to a special, can’t-miss ringtone. I tried one last time. The call went straight to voicemail. His phone was off. I gave up. As I leaned over to give my mother one last kiss goodbye, her phone slipped from the pocket of her gown. A video was playing on a loop. The sender was Lena. In the video, Lena was naked, wrapping her arms around Chiwetel from behind as they looked out at the city lights. Her voice was a kitten’s purr. “Chiwetel, all I want is to be recognized. To be able to properly take care of you… and Elara…” Recognized? We were married. Weren’t we? A roaring in my ears drowned out everything. In the dead silence of my mind, Chiwetel’s voice, hoarse but firm, exploded like a gunshot. “Okay.” I ran, my mind a blank. I went to the county records office, and there it was, in black and white. We were divorced. He had swapped the papers, tricked me into signing them. He knew. He knew my mother’s dying wish was to see us happy together. He stood by her bed and swore to God. “Mom, no matter what happens to Elara, I will always be by her side. I will never leave her.” His words, our love, it was all a joke. And this video… this was the weapon that killed my mother. A sudden, violent wave of nausea overcame me. I coughed, and a spray of blood erupted from my lips before I collapsed. I woke up in a hospital bed. Chiwetel was sitting beside me, his face drawn and exhausted, dark circles under his eyes. But there was no sympathy in his gaze. Only more disappointment. “Lena was up all night helping me with a proposal,” he said, his voice flat. “And you blew up my phone all night just to fake another emergency?” “I am your husband, Elara, not your on-call servant. Stop with the jealous games.” I stared at him. Then at the forged lab report on the bedside table, which clearly stated I was fine. A bitter laugh escaped my lips. It was for the best. I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t want anyone’s pity. Congratulations, Chiwetel, I thought. You’re about to be free. As he left, he tossed one last comment over his shoulder. “The company’s celebration gala is tomorrow. Behave yourself. I don’t want to be embarrassed again.” The next day, Lena was on his arm, greeting guests like she was already the lady of the house. All eyes, all whispers, were on me. I had just come from my mother’s cremation. My hair was a mess, my face puffy and etched with three years of exhaustion. I looked five years older than Chiwetel, though we were the same age. “Look at her, she looks half-dead. I don’t know how he puts up with it. Any other man would have kicked her out years ago.” “Please, he just keeps her around like a pet. She still thinks she’s Mrs. Archer.” “The sooner she drinks herself to death, the sooner he can marry Lena. At least she’s actually useful to him.” … Hearing it now, I could only smile. I was a burden. And I wasn’t even his wife anymore. Chiwetel’s eyes were full of pride as he looked at Lena. He didn’t deny a single word. Lena smiled brightly at me, tilting her head just so, showing off the magnificent gemstone necklace sparkling at her throat. The sight of it was a physical blow. It was the Starlight Serenade, the one-of-a-kind diamond necklace Chiwetel had given me on our wedding day. After I got sick, I started hurting myself with anything sharp I could find. With a look of guilt and exhaustion, he had slowly stopped buying me jewelry. It looked much better on her anyway. “You know, Mrs. Archer,” Lena said sweetly as she passed me, “you should try to be more understanding. Chiwetel is a very busy man. You can’t keep faking illnesses to get his attention.” She winked. “Ketchup is so cliché.” I bit the inside of my cheek so hard I tasted blood. But then she leaned in close, her voice a venomous whisper in my ear. “Oh, and by the way, give my best to your mother. Wish her... continued... good... health.” Her triumphant, mocking face filled my vision. I snapped. Before I even knew what I was doing, my hands were around her throat. She didn’t even look scared. She just smiled. “Elara, have you lost your mind!” Chiwetel’s hand cracked across my face. The force of the blow sent me staggering to the floor. Lena’s smile widened, a cruel, vicious thing he couldn’t see. I scrambled up, lunging for her again, but my wrist suddenly started vibrating, a shrill alarm blaring from the smart watch I wore—the one linked to my son’s. I froze, looking up into Lena’s victorious smile. It was like being struck by lightning. “Lena, where is my son? What did you do with him? Give him back to me!” I tried to grab her, but she recoiled, putting on a show of terror for the crowd. “Oh, Mrs. Archer, please don’t be like this! The baby is with the best nanny in the city! Don’t accuse me of such things…” But the alarm on my wrist was a frantic heartbeat, tearing my soul apart! I knew, I knew my son was in danger. I pushed forward, but Chiwetel shoved me back, his face contorted with rage. “Elara, what is wrong with you! You’ve been attacking Lena all night! I’m starting to think your depression is just an act!” The pain in my chest was so sharp I could barely breathe. I shook my head, my voice a desperate plea. “Chiwetel, the baby… he’s in danger…” Before I could finish, his eyes flashed. “He’s in danger? Lena is doing you a favor, taking care of him because you can’t, and this is how you repay her? Have you no conscience?!” I opened my mouth to explain, but Lena, looking like she’d been mortally wounded, let her own tears fall. “She must blame me for taking up all of your time, and the baby’s. This is her way of getting revenge.” She took a shaky breath. “But it’s okay. I know she’s not well. I… I’ll apologize to her…” She made a show of kneeling before me. In a flash, Chiwetel had her back on her feet, his eyes burning with disgust as he looked at me. “Elara, your depression is not an excuse to be a monster! The world doesn’t revolve around you! Apologize to Lena. Now!” He gave me a rough shove. And then it happened. A thick, dark stream of blood suddenly trickled from my nose and mouth. The crowd gasped. Chiwetel froze, letting go of my arm as if I were on fire. He stared at me, his face a mask of shock. “What… what is this?” I knew. The three days were up. The poison was working. But as long as I was alive, even for a few more hours, I wanted to be a mother. For the first time, I let go of my pride. I got on my knees. I knelt before my mother’s murderer. “Miss Lena,” I rasped. “I’m sorry.” My gaze, full of a hatred so deep it burned, swept from her to Chiwetel. “Is that a good enough apology for you?” Chiwetel’s breath hitched. I could see his chest rise and fall in a single, sharp motion. “You…” Lena just smiled, holding up her phone so I could see the screen. It was a live video. My baby. Someone was holding him by the scruff of his neck, dangling him over the dark, churning waters of a river. A guttural scream tore from my throat. I launched myself at her, but a powerful force kicked me to the ground. Chiwetel stood over me, shielding Lena. “Elara, you are beyond help,” he said, his voice cold and final. I lay on the floor, all strength gone. I could feel the connection to my son, that invisible thread, snapping. And as the world went dark, I closed my eyes. … When Chiwetel dragged his exhausted body home that night, he felt a strange sense of unease. There were no pleading texts from Elara, no missed calls. Then, his foot kicked something on the floor. It was a small, empty vial. The label was in a foreign language, but he recognized the skull and crossbones. At that exact moment, his phone rang. It was the hospital.
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