When the seventh goldfish floated belly-up, I sobbed and told my husband I was getting an abortion. After becoming pregnant, my mother-in-law suggested our five-year-old adopted daughter Holly stay with me. The day she arrived, my five-year-old goldfish died. For seven days straight, one fish died each day. Now I wanted Holly gone and was frantically grabbing my purse to flee to the clinic. "They're just fish!" my mother-in-law shouted. "Holly saved your life! Why this scene?" My husband Jason fell to his knees. "We tried so long for this baby! You'll abort it over fish? Are you insane?" But my voice trembled. "Seven fish are dead. The baby has to go!" Jason's eyes turned bloodshot. "I won't allow it! If you abort, I'll have a child with another woman!" "Fine!" I cried. "I'll even help raise it. But I must abort this child. The seventh fish is dead." 1. The seventh goldfish was dead. The glass slipped from my numb fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor. Jason rushed out of the bedroom. He saw me staring, transfixed, at the fish tank, and his eyes landed on the latest floating corpse. His brow furrowed in a familiar pattern. “Another one?” His voice was a thin veil over a deep well of exhaustion and impatience. “Honey, stop looking. I’ll buy you some new ones tomorrow.” I twisted my head, my gaze locking onto our seven-year-old adopted daughter in the corner of the sofa. Holly. Three months ago, my mother-in-law and Jason had brought her home from a rural orphanage. A poor, pitiful thing. Right now, she was curled up in the plush cushions, her small body nearly swallowed by the sofa, her head bowed so low all I could see was the crown of her dark hair. A wave of profound unease washed over me. I snatched my phone, my fingers flying as I dialed the number for the city hospital’s OB-GYN clinic. “City Hospital? I need to schedule an abortion. As soon as possible. Today! Right now!” Jason lunged, trying to rip the phone from my hand. “Susan! What are you talking about, an abortion? Are you out of your mind?!” His voice was a cocktail of disbelief, rage, and raw panic. “That’s our baby! The baby we’ve been praying for for years!” “Not only am I getting rid of this baby,” I interrupted, my voice sharp and brittle despite my dazed expression, “but her, that adopted girl, has to get out of my house! Right now! Immediately!” Jason froze, staring at me as if for the first time. “Susan, you were the one who said you couldn’t conceive, the one who desperately wanted to adopt! You and Mom went to the orphanage yourselves and hand-picked her from dozens of children!” He took a breath, trying to calm himself. “I get it, you’re pregnant, your hormones are all over the place. I’ll go along with whatever you want. But now you want to send a helpless five-year-old girl back, and you want to personally destroy the child we fought so hard for? What the hell is wrong with you? Does pregnancy make you crazy?” My husband was a good man. From the day we met through our marriage and five agonizing years of trying for a baby, he had treated me like a queen. Anything I wanted, he would move heaven and earth to get. But this time, staring at that line of tiny, cold bodies in the tank, a monstrous fear had its claws clamped around my heart. I couldn’t compromise. I didn’t dare. “Look at them! Seven of my fish, the ones I’ve had for five years, are dead! The seventh one today! One a day, for seven days!” My voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “If I don’t get rid of this baby today, if I don’t get that curse out of my house, it will be too late… It will be too late!” The last few words were a sob-choked scream. Jason was utterly baffled, his face a mixture of absurdity and confusion. “You want an abortion and you want to abandon a child… all because seven goldfish died? Susan, get a grip!” He tried to approach me, his tone pleading. “Yes, it’s sad that fish you had for five years died. But we can buy more! We can buy ten, a hundred, whatever you want! Just don’t do something this impulsive!” “Enough!” My mother-in-law burst out of the kitchen, planting herself in front of Holly. She pointed a trembling finger at me, tears streaming down her face. “Susan, do you hear yourself?! They’re just fish! Animals! They die! How can you compare them to a person?!” “This child has had such a hard life! No parents, growing up in an orphanage, God only knows what she’s been through! You were the one who insisted we adopt her! After we brought her home, after we all grew to love her—she’s so well-behaved, so sweet—what has she ever done to you? How can you be so heartless?” I stared past my mother-in-law at Holly, and a chill shot up from the soles of my feet to the crown of my head. Every hair on my body stood on end. My mother-in-law grew more agitated, her voice thick with emotion. “When you were spotting and unstable, if it wasn’t for Holly being so quick-witted and running to the neighbors to call 911… there’s no telling if you would have even kept this baby!” “She’s your savior! She’s your baby’s savior! And now, because of a few dead fish, you’re going to do this to your own benefactor and your own flesh and blood? You’re committing a sin, Susan! You’ll be damned for this!” Jason immediately jumped in. “Mom’s right, Sue, think about it! That day you fainted in the living room, it was just you and Holly at home. If she hadn’t run and banged on the neighbor’s door for help… I can’t even imagine what would have happened! She cares about you so much, she loves this family, she’s trying so hard to fit in… She’s just a five-year-old kid. What could she have possibly done wrong? The fish died, maybe the water quality was bad, or the weather changed, or maybe it was just their time. It has nothing to do with our baby or with Holly, okay?” Listening to them, their words felt like a mockery of my terror. I used to adore Holly. Of all the children at the orphanage, my eyes landed on her first. So quiet, so gentle, with big eyes that held a hint of careful, heartbreaking eagerness to please. I was the one who brought her home, who raised her as my own. It was only after I got pregnant and we moved back to the city for my check-ups that she came to stay for her summer break. And the moment she arrived, my fish started dying. One after another, a gruesome, daily ritual. A precise, macabre countdown. Including today’s, a full seven. I couldn’t wait any longer. I couldn’t afford to. No one in this house believed me. Desperation and a frantic, encroaching madness swallowed the last of my reason. I spun around and bolted for the kitchen. Without a second of hesitation, I snatched the butcher knife from the block and pointed it at Holly on the sofa. “Get out! Now! Get out of my house!” “Susan! What are you doing?!” Jason’s face went white with terror as he lunged to grab the knife. I twisted my wrist, the razor-sharp tip now aimed directly at him. “Don’t make me, Jason! Her, and this thing in my belly! Neither of them can stay! They can’t! I’m going to the hospital now, and nobody is going to stop me!” “Susan! Put the knife down!” Jason’s face was a mask of horror. He threw himself at me, wrapping his arms around my waist and arms with all his strength, desperately trying to wrestle the weapon from my grip. My mother-in-law shrieked and fumbled for her phone. “She’s crazy! She’s completely lost her mind! I’m calling your parents! I’m calling the relatives! Let everyone come and see this! See what kind of mother you are, trying to kill our Holly, trying to kill your own child, over a few stupid fish! This is a sin! Somebody help!” 2. Under the dim, yellow light, the living room was in chaos. My parents and a few relatives who lived nearby arrived quickly. They walked in to a scene of pure madness: me, hair wild, held in a desperate bear hug from behind by my husband, a gleaming butcher knife still clutched in my hand. Amid the shocked stares, Holly acted as if nothing was wrong. She slipped away from my mother-in-law’s protection, expertly grabbed a stack of paper cups, and carefully filled a few with warm water. “Grandpa… Grandma, have some water.” That display—so thoughtful, so pitiful, so bravely composed after such a scare—instantly won the heart of every person in the room. My mother’s face hardened. “Susan! What is this? How many times have I told you, if you can’t have a child, you focus on your health. And if you adopt, you take that responsibility seriously! Holly is a wonderful, sweet girl. What more could you want from a five-year-old? And now you’re waving a knife around and threatening to get rid of the grandchild we’ve waited so long for… Have you completely lost your mind?” My father was pale with rage, his finger trembling as he pointed at me. “This is nonsense! Absolute nonsense! We are not letting you get away with this! Put the knife down now and apologize to Holly!” I looked at my parents’ faces and saw the same expression as on my husband’s and mother-in-law’s—the unshakeable conviction that I was being completely irrational. A tidal wave of despair and helplessness crashed over me. I stopped struggling, my voice turning to a wretched plea. “Please, you have to believe me. We’re running out of time. This is the seventh dead fish. The seventh! If I don’t go today, if we don’t send her away, it will be too late! It will be too late! Mom, Dad, please believe me! Just this once!” “Oh, Susan, what are you even saying?” an aunt muttered, her eyes full of pity for Holly. “Look at that poor, sweet child. You’re lucky to have her! Why can’t you appreciate that? Fish die, you buy new ones. Is it really worth all this drama?” “Susan.” An uncle who rarely spoke now chimed in, his face grim. “Listen to me. If you want to give up this child, that’s one thing. But you are not getting rid of a child of this family! And Jason would never stay with a woman who doesn’t even love her own baby!” His voice hardened. “Our family can’t handle that kind of scandal!” I snapped my head up, staring at him blankly. “What… what do you mean?” My uncle snorted, his voice firm. “It means if you insist on this abortion, we’ll have Jason divorce you! This family doesn’t want a cruel, heartless woman like you as a daughter-in-law!” “Divorce?” The word was a spark in the darkness of my despair. Yes! A divorce! If we divorced, the adoption would be void. Holly would no longer be my daughter! If she wouldn’t leave, I could! And the baby… once I was no longer Jason’s legal wife, I could make the decision myself! It was my only way out. The words tumbled from my lips before I could stop them. “Fine! I agree to a divorce!” The living room fell dead silent. All the shouting, the crying, the accusations—it all stopped as if someone had hit a pause button. Jason stared at me, his face a canvas of pure disbelief. “Susan, what did you just say?” “I said, I agree to a divorce.” I met his shattered gaze, my voice clear and steady. “We get a divorce. Right now. I’ll walk away with nothing, as long as it doesn’t stop me from getting the abortion.” “ARE YOU INSANE?!” Jason roared, the sound ripped from his chest, thick with an unbelievable pain. He stumbled forward, reaching for me, but I shrank away. “We’ve been married for seven years! Seven! We’ve been through so much! To have this child, how many hospitals did we visit, how much did we suffer, how many people did we beg?! After all that, after finally getting our miracle, you’re telling me you have to get rid of it? That you’re willing to end our marriage to destroy the symbol of our love? Tell me why! I might be able to understand, but don’t you dare tell me it’s because of a few dead fish!” I froze.
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