Chapter 1
After three years of marriage and ten rounds of IVF, I fought tooth and nail to bring a daughter into this world.
On my daughter, Lily Grant's, fourth birthday, my husband, Edward Grant, slid a bone marrow donation consent form across the table to me.
He said, "Sign it.
"If Lily's a match, we'll do further tests."
I glanced down at the form. The recipient's name was someone I had never heard of.
Lucas Bennett.
And under the guardian's signature line, it said my daughter.
Before I could say a word, Edward pressed a pen into my hand, his voice low.
He said, "Emma, don't fuss.
"It's a blood test. We'll deal with the rest later."
I stared at him, feeling my fingertips turn icy cold.
"You want the daughter I nearly died to give you after ten rounds of IVF to donate to whom?" I asked.
Edward was silent for two seconds. Then he finally spoke up.
He said, "Olivia's son has leukemia.
"Right now, only Lily might be able to save him."
I tore the consent form to pieces on the spot.
Olivia Bennett was the woman he had loved for ten years.
She was also the woman who, on the eve of our wedding, sent him a message: [Are you really willing to marry someone else?]
And now, Edward wanted Lily's life to pay for his overdue devotion.
*****
Scraps of paper fluttered all over the floor.
The living room fell into a suffocating silence.
On the dining table sat the cake I had finished—pink frosting, strawberries around the edge, and a lopsided number four candle in the center, which Lily had insisted on putting there herself.
She had said, "I'm so grown up now; I'm four.
"Daddy will definitely come home early today to blow out the candles with me."
But when Edward finally walked through the door, he directly said, "Sign it."
Edward stared down at the pile of shredded paper, his face growing darker by the second.
"Emma, can you stop being so selfish?" he snapped.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
"I'm selfish?" I shot back. "You want my daughter to donate bone marrow to the son of the woman you've been pining over for ten years, and you call me selfish?"
Edward pressed his fingers to his temples, as if he were trying to hold back his frustration.
He said, "The doctor said we might not need a transplant. It's a basic blood test and check, nothing more.
"Besides, Lily is my daughter, too. Do you really think I'd ever hurt her?"
I looked at him, feeling like someone had shoved a burning coal in my chest. "You wouldn't hurt her?
"Edward, do you know what I've been through these past three years?"
The first time they tried to stimulate my ovaries, I spiked a fever of 102°F and spent the whole night shivering under the covers.
The second time they retrieved my eggs, I hemorrhaged internally. I was in so much pain that I bit down on the bedsheet and cried myself hoarse.
The third time the transplant failed, I sat alone in the hospital corridor until dawn. When the nurse came to change my bandages and asked where my family was, I couldn't get a word out.
After that, it was round after round of injections, egg retrievals, and failed transfers.
My stomach was covered in bruises, my arms riddled with needle marks, and my cycle was completely out of whack.
The doctor kept urging me to stop, saying I wasn't in great shape to begin with, and if I kept pushing myself like this, my ovaries and uterus would give out on me.
But Edward's mother, Margaret Grant, watched my stomach like she was eyeing a business deal.
Edward would wrap his arms around me, coaxing me again and again in my ear, "Emma, let's try one more time. I want to have a child with you."
I believed him.
For that promise, I forced myself through ten rounds of IVF.
It took ten rounds, but I finally managed to get pregnant.
But on the day I gave birth, I started bleeding out; the hospital sent out two emergency alerts in a row.
On the operating table, pain nearly swallowed me whole. I was slipping in and out of consciousness, but I still heard the nurse ask, "Who should we save—the mother or the baby?"
Later, I learned it was Edward, eyes rimmed red, who signed the papers and said, "Both. Save them both."
Back then, I really thought he loved me.
But now, brushing it off with a simple "it's only a blood test," he acted like everything I suffered never happened.
When I stayed silent, Edward finally softened his tone.
He said, "Emma, I know this is hard for you.
"But Lily's still so young; her bone marrow bounces back fast. As long as she's a match, it's safe enough.
"Olivia's running out of time."
When I heard that, I couldn't help but laugh.
So that was it.
It was not the boy who was out of time.
It was Olivia, his precious one, who was desperate.