Chapter 4: The Departure
“So after everything I put into this,” he said, his voice rising with a terrifying, calm precision, “you give me a girl?”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Michael, it’s our child. What are you saying?”
“What do I need a girl for?” he spat. “I wanted a son. You knew that. We talked about this a thousand times.”
“It’s a human being, Michael! Not a customized order!” I was standing now, too, my hands shaking so violently I had to grip the edge of the table.
He laughed—a dry, hollow sound. “You’re serious? You think I’m going to spend the next twenty years raising a girl? You knew what I wanted, Sharon. You knew.”
He walked into the bedroom and I heard the heavy thud of a suitcase being pulled from the top shelf of the closet. My legs felt like lead as I followed him. I watched as he began throwing clothes into the bag with a calculated, cold efficiency.
“It was your egg,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “Your genetics. You ruined this.”
I stood in the doorway, paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of his cruelty. “I didn’t choose the gender. That isn’t how biology works, and you know it.”
“I’m not raising a daughter,” he said, zipping the suitcase shut with a final, definitive snap. “Remember that. Whatever happens next, this is on you. You’re the one who failed the assignment.”
He walked past me without a second glance. He didn’t look back at the pink ribbons or the dinner cooling on the table. He walked out of the front door and into the night, leaving me standing in a house that suddenly felt like a tomb. There was no apology the next day. No “I was just stressed” phone call a week later. He was simply gone. He had made a cold, calculated decision to delete us from his life because we didn’t fit the brand he had envisioned for himself.
