While I Gave Birth, My Husband Married His Mistress

Lily sat at the small folding table in our servant’s room, doing her spelling homework.

Her pencil suddenly slipped from her fingers. It rolled across the floor with a hollow plastic clatter.

I looked up from folding sheets. Lily’s cheek was pressed flat against her open workbook. Her skin looked dull and yellowish under the bare overhead bulb. Over the last week, the soft pink in her cheeks had vanished completely.

"Lily?" I called out softly.

She blinked, struggling to lift her head. "The word was cloud, Mama. C-L-O..." Her eyelids fluttered shut again. She didn't finish the word. Her head sank back down onto the paper.

Her lone kidney was struggling. It was doing the work of two, and it was running out of steam.

I couldn't take her back to Dr. Vance. I couldn't trust any doctor on Dariel’s payroll.

I walked over to the narrow closet. At the very back, hidden inside the hollow sole of an old winter boot, was a thick white envelope. Three thousand dollars in cash. I had saved it dollar by dollar over eight years, skipping meals and taking on secret alteration jobs late at night. Danny had never known about it. Dariel had never known about it either.

The next morning, I took Lily to an independent clinic out in Queens.

Dr. Robert Miller sat behind a cluttered desk. He held Lily's fresh lab results in his left hand and the faded surgical sheets from three years ago in his right.

He didn't speak for a long time.

The tiny exam room was dead silent, except for the rattle of an old window unit. Dr. Miller read the papers twice. Then he looked over at Lily. She was curled up on the examination bed, sound asleep with her thumbs tucked into her fists.

His jaw tightened. He set the papers down very slowly.

"Mrs. Pierce?" he asked, keeping his voice low. "Or Ms. Thompson?"

"Kara is fine," I said. My palms were freezing cold.

"Who performed this left nephrectomy three years ago?"

"Dr. Raymond Chu," I answered. "He told me her left kidney had a defect from birth. He said it died, and they had to remove it before it poisoned her blood."

Dr. Miller took off his glasses. He rubbed his eyes. He had the tired, tight expression of a doctor looking at something truly sickening.

"There are no markers of infection here, Kara," he said quietly. "No necrosis. No tissue death. Her remaining kidney is completely overloaded right now because it's doing everything alone. Her creatinine is at a dangerous level."

He leaned across the desk, looking directly into my eyes.

"A perfectly healthy child's organ was removed from her body. Whoever did this... they didn't do it to save her."

The room seemed to tilt. Hearing a stranger say the words made the horror solid. It wasn't just a suspicion anymore. It was real.

On the cab ride back into the city, Lily rested her head on my lap. Rain began to patter against the car window.

She opened her heavy eyes and looked up at me. "Mama?"

"Yes, baby?" I smoothed the dark hair away from her forehead.

"Am I going to be okay?" she whispered.

My throat tightened so hard it hurt to breathe.

"Yes," I told her, kissing her temple. "You are going to be okay. I promise you."

I didn't know if it was a lie. But I knew I would tear the world apart before I let them touch her again.

***

Night came. The penthouse was dark and silent. Dariel and Nylah were out at a private dinner downtown.

In our small room, Lily was finally asleep. Her little chest rose and fell in shallow, rapid breaths.

I sat down on the edge of the narrow twin bed. The old springs groaned beneath my weight.

I pulled out my cracked phone.

My fingers hovered over the screen. Ten digits. I hadn't dialed them in ten long years. But I had never forgotten them. They were burned into my brain, clear as day.

I tapped the numbers one by one.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I pressed the phone to my ear.

It didn't even ring twice. It barely finished the first ring before the line clicked open.

"Kara?"

Theodore’s voice came through the receiver. It was deep, calm, and completely steady. He didn't sound surprised. He didn't sound angry. He didn't demand to know where I had been for a decade.

Hearing his voice broke the last wall inside me.

A choked sob tore through my chest. Tears flooded my eyes before I could stop them.

"Theodore," I whispered. My voice cracked on the very first word. "I... I need help."

There was no pause. No hesitation. No questions asked.

"I'm already on my way," Theodore said.

The line went dead.

I slowly lowered the phone to my lap. I sat in the dark for a long time, listening to the soft hum of the city through the glass.

Out of habit, I lifted my right hand. I moved my thumb over to rub against the inside of my left ring finger.

My thumb met only bare skin.

I froze.

I held my hand up to the faint light slipping through the window blinds. The cheap silver band was gone. There was only a thin, pale mark where the metal had sat for eight years.

I had taken it off. I didn't even remember doing it.

I pressed my thumb against the empty skin. My hands weren't shaking anymore.

The ring was gone. And I was never putting it back on.