The Day I Miscarried, He Was Delivering Another Woman’s Baby Chapter 11

The Day I Miscarried, He Was Delivering Another Woman’s Baby Chapter 11

Darkness fell. Lights came on in the windows of neighboring houses.

The smell of dinner drifted over from next door.

But inside this house, no one would ever wait for him to come home again. No one would keep a hot meal for him.

After a long time, he sank to the floor. Covered his face. And wept.

The court summons arrived days later.

The court found him at serious fault in the marriage. I recovered the vast majority of our joint assets. He was left with almost nothing.

The hospital’s decision came quickly too.

The scandal had brought severe reputational damage to the institution. He was terminated.

Tessa was ordered to return what had never been hers.

Her shop couldn’t hold on.

Even if she scraped together rent, everyone in the neighborhood knew what she’d done.

Clients who’d bought prepaid services came back demanding refunds.

The occasional passerby who considered stepping inside would get pulled aside by neighboring shopkeepers. Then they’d turn and leave.

Tessa tried to contact Soren. Begged him to help her one more time.

He wouldn’t take her calls. He wouldn’t see her.

Eventually, she had to unload the shop. She started job hunting.

But once people read her name, they didn’t even bother with polite dismissals.

“Sorry. We aren’t looking to hire someone famous for wrecking a marriage.”

Later, people saw her on the street, selling off the leftover pets at steep discounts.

Later still, no one saw her at all.

By then, I had become a war correspondent. My work covering the migrant crisis at the border had been exceptional enough to earn a rare transfer approval into an active conflict zone.

Kate was right. It was dangerous here.

I’d seen war in the news, on social media. Standing in it was different. Something in your chest won’t settle.

The people who live here don’t know if they’ll survive to the next day.

They don’t know if the next thing they lose will be a friend. A child. A parent.

What I could do was limited.

I did my best to transmit what was happening here. To let the outside world see the truth. See what these people were enduring.

Sometimes I helped carry the wounded.

Sometimes I told children—born into war and knowing nothing else—about the world outside.

I told them if they stayed alive, there was still a chance to get out.

The people here understood the value of a life more than most.

No matter how bad things got, they fought to live each day.

Watching them, the people and the things I couldn’t let go of back home started to feel lighter.