The Substitute Wife Escapes Her Gilded Cage

v

hummed with a sterile, aggressive electr

ep, feigning death. I needed a mome

the

. It was low, urgent,

verything you can.

finish the

the IV drip next to me. She looked at

ake," she

ages felt thick and tight, con

asked, my voic

ooked at the chart, then a

sband emphasized that we

. "Is there sti

it he

rist. It took a

ll

he shock... it was too much. We had to perform a

mething you could have kept. This was... inevitability. That baby was never go

know?"

. difficult. He's demanding to se

ell him,

ha

him I lost i

hy

, he'll discard me before I ca

ll him myself," I lied.

some time. We need to change your dres

" I

debridement process

at the ceiling. "I need to be c

out of my system. I needed to remember exactly

until I tasted copper. But I didn't scream. I didn't give him th

lay sweating and tre

ened. Marcu

was crooked. He looked like a worried h

ng to the bedside. He

led i

hed, loo

id. "It happened so f

what mattered to

air. "Don't be like that. Izzy... she's

looked at him. The hands

rcus. I was burning,

t help!" he l

y eyes. "I

s... is everything

. "The baby is fine

olding. "Thank God. That's... t

scrolling on his phone. Then, i

e this. It's Izzy. She's shaken up by t

you do,"

issed my forehead. I

e morning. Rest. Th

l

Then I dragged my brok

shuffled to the closet where they had put my clothes. The

phone. I dia

aid. "File the

D'Angelo,

sed. "And rele

ung

looked at myself in the mi

e of Marcus and me on our wedding day. He wasn't looking at me in t

it in

or. I took the stairs, one agonizing step at a tim

by. I walked out int

had called it on an

lady?" the

rport,"

t stop. J

I didn't look back at the city tha

sband, a dead child, and

or the first time in two years, the