A year of appointments, injections, and Felix telling me not to give up.
“What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you. I need your help.”
She pushed the envelope closer.
Inside was a private agreement prepared by a law firm.
The first page offered Elise money if she agreed not to ask Felix for financial support and did not use his family name without permission.
The second page was worse.
If she continued with the pregnancy, she was expected to consider giving the baby to a married couple chosen by the biological father.
A married couple.
I looked up slowly.
“What couple?”
Elise’s face broke.
“You and Felix.”
For several seconds, I could hear only the coffee machine behind the counter.
“He told me you had always wanted a child,” she continued. “He said he would tell you that a friend was unable to care for her baby. He thought you would agree to adopt without asking too many questions.”
The words blurred in front of me.
Felix had not only betrayed me.
He had taken the most painful part of my life and turned it into a plan.
Every night I had cried quietly in the bathroom.
Every treatment.
Every baby shower I had attended with a smile.
Every time I had whispered that I would love any child who came into our lives.
He had used all of it.
“He wanted me to raise his child without knowing the truth,” I said.
Elise nodded.
“He said it solved everything. He could keep his daughter close. You would finally become a mother. And I would disappear.”
“Were you going to sign?”
“No.”
She reached across the table but stopped before touching my hand.
“I made terrible choices, Nora. I knew he was married. He told me you were separated emotionally and only staying together because of money. I believed what I wanted to believe.”
I looked at her stomach.
The baby moved beneath her dress.
None of this was the baby’s fault.
“Who prepared the contract?”
Elise turned to the final page.
The law firm belonged to Felix’s father.
His entire family knew.
Ingrid had not made a cruel joke at dinner.
She had been describing their plan.
“There’s more,” Elise whispered.
She opened her phone and played a recording.
Felix’s voice filled the space between us.
“If Nora believes she is adopting because the mother has no other choice, she won’t question it. She wants a baby more than anything.”
Then Ingrid spoke.
“Get the papers signed soon. Once the child is born, the girl may become difficult.”
Elise stopped the recording.
“They threatened to tell people I was unstable,” she said. “They said Felix had money, lawyers, and a respectable marriage. They told me no one would believe I could give the baby a proper home.”
I looked at her.
“Do you want to keep your child?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will not sign anything.”
“But I can’t fight them alone.”
“You won’t have to.”
My voice surprised me.
My hands were trembling under the table, but the fear was changing into something sharper.
For years, Felix’s family had mistaken my silence for weakness.
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