My wife, Amelia Johnson, and I had been childless by choice for seven years. She decided to be a surrogate for her best friend, Michael Harris. I watched her sweetly smile as she talked on the phone. “The child will inherit all of Charlie’s fortune. We won’t even need to raise them.” Then she texted me: [Honey, surrogacy isn’t cheating. He’s gay! What are you worried about?] When I suggested terminating the pregnancy, she responded with divorce papers. Amelia told me not to have regrets, and her words cut deep. I crumpled up my kidney cancer diagnosis in my hand. Who would be the one with regrets now? After seven blissful years of marriage with Amelia, I was blindsided on our anniversary with the news that she’d agreed to be a surrogate for her male best friend. I had always desperately wanted a child of my own. Yet I’d gotten a vasectomy out of concern for her health. And now here she was, willingly enduring IVF treatments to have a baby for her best friend? What did that make me? “I know you don’t like kids. Once the baby’s born, I’ll hand it straight over to him. He’s gay and can’t have kids of his own. Isn’t that tragic enough?” Amelia stated with absolute conviction. I opened my mouth, but no words came out. As an orphan, I’d always dreamed of having my own family. How could she think I didn’t want children? Sure, I was married, but Amelia was having someone’s baby. How did that give me the family I longed for? Just then, a nurse interrupted our conversation. “Mr. Charlie Jones, the results from your wife’s specially ordered medical examination are ready.” “Go get the reports from the nurse,” Amelia quickly told me, pressing her thermos into my palm. “You rushed out this morning without breakfast, so I made some chicken soup. I was worried about your stomach.” The medical staff nearby made appreciative noises. Those little gestures that once felt so sweet now just made me uncomfortable and tense. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d accidentally overheard earlier when I arrived early at the entrance. “The child will inherit all of Charlie’s fortune. We won’t even need to raise them.” Those words kept echoing in my mind, each repetition like a bell tolling numbly against my heart. The nurse kept chattering in my ear. “Your wife really takes such good care of you, sir. Some of these specialist appointments have a six-month waiting list. Seven years of checkups. She’s really devoted to you.” “Is that so?” I forced a smile, though it felt more like a grimace. After collecting all the medical reports, I frowned deeply at the final page. I rushed to the obstetrics department, only to learn Amelia had already left. My phone buzzed with over a dozen messages from her, fussing about the cold weather and saying she’d asked my secretary to bring me a scarf. She wrote that I hadn’t been sleeping well lately, so she’d gone ahead to handle some company business for me. She mentioned she had a big surprise planned for our seventh anniversary. The messages kept coming, one after another, each seemingly showing how much she cared. Through the rearview mirror, the cab driver grinned and teased, “Must be your wife, huh? She can’t bear to be apart from you. Your phone’s blowing up with messages.” The radio volume in the car gradually increased as the female host read cheerfully, “Today marks the seventh anniversary of Mrs. Jones, wife of the Jones Group CEO. On this special day, she wants to tell him…” The driver clicked his tongue and remarked, “Now that’s what I call hitting the jackpot. A self-made man marries a rich wife! She even changed her company name for him, and she’s totally devoted. Wonder how he pulled that off.” I could only manage a bitter smile. As I pushed open the car door and entered the company, reaching my office floor, party poppers exploded in the air. The entire floor was decorated with baby-themed ornaments. The employees joyfully congratulated me on having a son. Candles and roses created a pathway, and at the end stood Amelia, smiling at me. My phone buzzed with a notification, and I hesitantly opened the video. Her so-called “best friend” was tangled intimately with her on our marriage bed. Did she ever truly love me?
I didn’t know if someone’s love could be a facade for seven years. The videos I saw and the conversations I overheard at the hospital, combined with all these baby decorations in front of me, made my stomach churn and my face turn pale. Amelia came over and affectionately took my hand. The swelling in her hands and feet and the backache from pregnancy were noticeable now. Just standing for a moment made cold sweat break out on her forehead and nose. My assistant Alex Wills whispered that Amelia had put up all these decorations herself, saying she didn’t want anyone else touching our seventh-anniversary preparations. Amelia pulled me into the office, where her male best friend had already prepared a cup of hot water for her. “Tonight’s family dinner. Dad finally agreed to let me bring you!” That was her surprise. “Don’t be mad that I announced at work that the baby is ours. How else could we fool Dad? It is perfect! We can use the little one to get his approval finally.” As a poor guy who married a rich man’s daughter, I’d gotten nothing but cold shoulders from her family for seven years. Amelia had been caught in the middle, and thinking about that made my heart soften a bit. Michael leaned in with a grin, arm around her shoulders. “Hey, you should be thanking your friendly sperm donor here. Charlie’s shooting blanks, after all.” My supposed infertility was just a lie we made up when Amelia was afraid of having kids, and I got a vasectomy to back up the story. Before I could object, Amelia glared at him and pointed her finger in his face, demanding he apologize to me. “How many times do I have to tell you not to touch me? I’m a germaphobe! Anyone but my husband makes my skin crawl!” Michael quickly threw up his hands in surrender. This act had been performed hundreds, thousands of times in front of me over the past seven years. I truly believed they were just best friends, never seeing anything wrong with it. Now, it just makes my eyes ache to think about it. I could finally hear the challenge hidden beneath his playful tone. Amelia excitedly told me, “I really took one for the team this time! You wanted that land in the south district, right? Well, he said he’d give it to us directly. And about that bidding process, you’ve been stressing over. I’ll sweet-talk him tonight. With this baby, my dad will definitely help you out.” Over these two weeks, she’d traveled across half of the country for me, compiling detailed market research, leaving nothing out. Michael made a snide comment about her taking care of herself, “Some people, hmph, they’re so eager to help their husband that they ignore their morning sickness. Wonder who was throwing up bile the other day?” I kept my eyes down, unsure how to react. “Get rid of it,” I suddenly said. “The infertility certificate was fake. On our wedding day, you cried and told me your mother died on the operating table during childbirth. So I got a vasectomy and made up that lie. Your body isn’t suited for pregnancy. Please terminate it.” Amelia clutched her stomach, shaking her head repeatedly. I started to pull out the medical report from my pocket. But then I heard her say sadly, “Michael has kidney cancer. It is his only chance to have a child. Honey, can’t we just help him out?”
I felt pretty helpless about the whole thing. Her love for me had seemed so passionate and intense, yet she was afraid of getting pregnant with me while wanting to give Michael an heir. She claimed to be a germaphobe, wincing whenever others touched her. Yet there she was, intimately entangled with her “best friend” in our marital bed. Michael saw me covering my face and sneered, “You better not claim you have cancer, too. She checked your electronic medical records right away. They were clean.” I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I did have a cancer report in my hand, but it wasn’t mine. Suddenly, the lights went dark, and a group of people emerged singing with a cake. Turns out this was another birthday surprise. “By the way, today is also Mr. Harris’ birthday. Perfect timing to celebrate together.” The employees thought it was quite a coincidence, but my smile became strained as my heart sank. Every year, Amelia made such a huge deal of this anniversary, even bringing Michael along. Now I could see clearly who the real celebration was for. The employees gathered around, chattering excitedly about how Amelia had made this three-tiered cake herself despite being pregnant and how she’d specifically chosen flavors she knew I liked. “Mr. Jones likes strawberries but not strawberry-flavored cake! Mrs. Jones really pays attention to every little detail about Mr. Jones.” Several younger employees squealed dramatically, “She’s so in love with Mr. Jones!” “They’re making us single people jealous again, doing this every year.” As I cut the cake surrounded by everyone, my feelings were a complicated mess. After the crowd dispersed and my emotions settled, I realized I didn’t dare to bring up our marriage issues just yet. I just wanted to give us both time to think things through. But as soon as I started to leave, Amelia came running after me in panic, hugging me so tightly that the cuts on her fingers began bleeding again. “I was too rushed making your chicken soup this morning,” she said. Her hands, once as smooth as pearl, were now covered in scars from seven years of cooking for me. My heart softened. She’d grown up pampered by her father, yet here she was, cooking meals for a poor guy like me. “I just need some time to clear my head.” I tried to reassure her. “Charlie!” she cried out, clutching my arm with tear-filled eyes. Her emotions were so intense that she doubled over, holding her belly and sobbing, “Charlie, it’s all my fault. Please don’t be angry.” Then she slowly sank to the ground and passed out. Following our family doctor’s advice, I took her home to rest. Suddenly, the nurse on the phone apologized to me. “We sent you the wrong electronic report today. I accidentally recorded the cancer diagnosis on your health check report. Please refer to the paper version instead and bring your wife in for an examination as soon as possible.” After hanging up, I received screenshots from the nurse on my phone. On the electronic report she sent today, it was written in black and white that I had terminal cancer. No wonder, no wonder they could ask so precisely whether I had cancer, too. No wonder they could produce a fake report so quickly. The cold wind from the balcony chilled me to the bone as I opened my other phone, which was connected to the listening device in the room. I heard Amelia, who was supposed to be unconscious, speaking softly to someone else. “Don’t you want to know what it feels like to be pregnant?” In the end, a bitter smile crept across my lips.
At that moment, I hated that I wasn’t a woman. I should’ve stormed in there screaming and scratching their faces like a madwoman. Instead, I had to hold back, worried about upsetting Amelia with her pregnancy and cancer diagnosis. Even as I stood there, a complete fool, my eye caught something in the trash. It was a takeout receipt. When I checked it, it was for chicken soup from this morning. Suddenly, everything clicked. With trembling hands, I searched through the delivery app, finding every single “loving lunch” I’d eaten over the years from that same restaurant. I quickly pulled up our work group photos, and in the corner of one, I spotted a cake decoration that led me straight to the bakery. So it was all fake. The cat’s pitiful yowl from atop the fridge snapped me out of my gloomy thoughts. It had gotten itself stuck up there. When I went to help it down, it thanked me with a vicious swipe, its claws raking my hand deep enough to tear the skin. I yelped in pain and chased after it, only to watch this cat. It was untameable after seven years, curling up in Michael’s arms like a pampered kitten, purring and nuzzling. Amelia’s face was flushed, her lips still glistening, her eyes darting around, but she hadn’t even noticed my injury. “I probably can’t make it to the family dinner tonight. I need to get this checked out at the hospital.” “No hospitals!” Her knee-jerk reaction stunned me. She still thought I had cancer, not knowing about the medical records mix-up. “Why waste time at the hospital? It’s bad luck. Besides, it’s just a house cat. It’s fine. Don’t you want my dad’s approval? You can’t skip the family dinner.” That knot in my chest just wouldn’t loosen. On the way to Amelia’s father, Andrew Johnson’s dinner party, I asked her if keeping the baby was necessary. “You’ve always been terrified of having kids. Now you’re willing to risk everything for his child? What does that make our marriage? The moment Michael chose to be with men, he should have given up this obsession with having children.” Amelia bit her lip, tears welling up in her eyes. I asked her one last time, “Did this baby really come from IVF?” SLAP! Her hand struck my cheek. Then she reached out with trembling fingers to touch my face, but I turned away. “Charlie, how could you doubt my love for you?” The rest of the ride was silent, and before I knew it, we arrived at her father, Andrew Johnson’s, villa. Andrew, who’d always looked down his nose at me, gave his daughter a quick hug and ushered her inside. I trailed behind them, silently carrying the gifts. Then I spotted Michael, who had already made himself entirely at home here. “Michael is my godson now. He’s living with us! Got a problem with that?” Andrew snapped when he caught me staring. What right did I have to object? Even though I’d saved the company from bankruptcy, I was still just a nobody from the wrong side of the tracks. What did it matter if I’d bought this villa? I still couldn’t set foot in it like I belonged. I’d been played like a fool by this father and daughter. My phone buzzed with another message. After the video Michael sent last time, now he’d sent me a property deed. The villa had been transferred to his name. I turned off my phone and took a deep breath. “If you love me, if you’re loyal to our marriage, then terminate this pregnancy.” The happy trio suddenly fell silent. I could see the contempt in Andrew and Michael’s eyes. My last shred of hope disappeared as she hesitated until there was nothing left. “Let’s get a divorce.” Free Point
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