The Day I Took Her Child

Synopsis

Seven years of marriage, and I'd long lost count of the women my husband, Richard Lane, had slept with. I turned a blind eye to all of it. It was because he always paid me off. An affair with an influencer? He'd give me a downtown penthouse. A yacht party with a young model? He'd give me a matching yacht. He bought my silence, my breakdowns, my questions, and my tears with money. Until I was eight months pregnant, the baby inside me stopped breathing. I had to be induced to deliver the stillborn baby. Weak and trembling, I was helped out of the operating room by the maid. That was when I saw Richard, in the room next door, carefully tending to a woman who had just given birth. Our eyes met. For a split second, panic flickered across his face. Then came the familiar coldness. He walked over and handed me a blank check. "Fill in whatever amount you want," he said. I tore it to pieces. I looked at him and smiled. "Richard," I said, "this time, I don't want your money." I raised my shaking hand and pointed past him, toward the faint cry coming from the room behind him. "I want that child."