My Final Gift In A Box

The lab results were crumpled behind my back, the sharp edges of the paper digging into my palm until it pulsed with a dull ache.

Under the flickering glow of the dining room chandelier, I watched my son. He was picking at his dinner with a cold, practiced indifference that mirrored his fathers. I couldnt help myself; the secret in my hand was too heavy. I asked him, my voice barely a whisper, if hed ever wanted a little sister.

He paused, his fork hovering mid-air. His lashes cast long, dark shadows over his cheekbones. Without looking up, he shook his head. "I already have a sister," he said quietly.

I started to laugh, ready to tease him about childhood imaginings, but the sound died in my throat. Beside him, my husbandthe man I had built a life with for fifteen yearsset his cutlery down with a clinical click.

His tone was as flat as if he were checking the weather. He told me hed been seeing a younger woman. He told me she was pregnant. The amniotic fluid test results had come back yesterday. It was a girl.

"Shes young, shes healthy. The baby will be bright," Wyatt said, looking at me with eyes that held no more warmth than a frozen lake. "Im keeping this child, Margot. I have to."

It felt as though an invisible hand had reached into my chest and squeezed. Every breath I took felt like inhaling shattered glass.

I realized then that the "little girl" I had been dreaming of, the one currently forming inside me, had already been replaced. I was a spectator in someone elses success story.

"Why?"

I forced the word out through the bile rising in my throat. I couldnt reconcile the man sitting across from me with the husband who had supposedly adored me for over a decade.

Wyatt didn't blink. He didn't even have the decency to look ashamed.

"Six months ago. A party, too much to drink, a mistake with a girl. I tried to pay her off, Margot. I really did. But shes... persistent. And fertile, apparently."

A small, involuntary smirk touched the corners of his mouth.

"Parker found out it was a girl. Hes the one who begged me to let her keep it. You should have seen him that day. I haven't seen him that happy in years."

The pride in Wyatts voice made my blood run cold. I turned to my son, expecting to see a shred of guilt. There was none.

"I want a sister," Parker said, his voice terrifyingly mature. "It doesn't matter who the mother is."

The first tear escaped, hot and bitter. I felt like I was looking at two strangers wearing the faces of the people I loved most.

Wyatt sighed, pulling a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and sliding it toward me across the mahogany table. "Is this really necessary? Look at the circles we run in, Margot. Half the men at the club have a second family. I thought you were more sophisticated than this."

"Don't worry," he added, as if granting a mercy. "Once the baby is born, Ill set the girl up in Europe. Your position, your statusnone of that changes."

I pushed the handkerchief away. I put my head down and let the sob break.

Yesterday, I was the woman everyone envied. The wife of a tech mogul with a spotless reputation. The mother of a prodigy. Today, the floor had dropped out from under me.

I rubbed my eyes, desperate to wake up from this fever dream. Wyatt reached out, catching my chin, wiping a tear away with his thumb.

"Stop the dramatics. No one knows about this except a few close friends. Youll always be Mrs. Wyatt Scott. I promise, okay?"

The name hit me like a physical blow. I suddenly went cold. My hand instinctively hovered over my stomach, thinking of the life inside me. What a cruel joke.

When Wyatt tried to pull me into a forced embrace, I shoved him back with a strength that surprised us both.

"Get away from me! Youre filthy. Don't you dare touch me."

He stepped back, holding his hands up in a mocking gesture of surrender. "Fine. I won't touch you. Maybe Parker can talk some sense into you."

I stood up so abruptly the chair screeched against the hardwood. In one blind motion, I swept the dinner service off the table. China shattered. Wine spilled like blood across the white linen.

"I want a divorce," I choked out. "And I will never, ever raise that woman's brat."

The silence that followed was absolute. Wyatts eyes turned predatory, the mask of the "good husband" finally slipping.

Parker looked at me with pure, unadulterated disappointment.

"If you want to leave, Mom, leave. Im staying with Dad."

"And just so you know," the boy added, his voice ice-cold, "if you walk out that door today, Jessie will be my new mother tomorrow."

The strength left my legs. I gripped the edge of the sideboard. "What did you just say?"

Jessie.

She was a student at the university where I taught. A girl who had come to my office months ago, announcing she was dropping out because shed "hit the jackpot" with a wealthy older man. I had tried to mentor her, told her she was throwing her future away for a paycheck.

She had looked at me with such pity. "Trust me, Professor. My man has enough money to support ten of me. Im set for life."

I had felt sorry for her then. I didn't realize she was talking about my life.

"Why?" I whispered. "Of all the girls in this city, why my student?"

Wyatt rubbed his temples. "It wasn't intentional. I was at the hotel, I went into the wrong suite... by the time I realized who she was, it had already happened."

He looked at me then, a dark, hungry light in his eyes. "But I don't regret it. Eighteen-year-olds have a certain... vitality that you lost a long time ago, Margot."

My brain felt like it was exploding. I grabbed the nearest heavy objecta crystal decanterand hurled it at him. Then a glass. Then a plate. I screamed until my throat was raw, throwing everything within reach until I collapsed, gasping for air. Wyatt hadn't even moved to dodge.

"Feel better now?" he asked, stepping over the glass shards. He reached out to help me up.

"Go to hell!" I screamed.

I grabbed a broken shard of a teacup and brandished it like a knife. My hand was bleeding where the porcelain had sliced my palm.

Wyatts expression hardened. He lunged forward, grabbing my wrist in a vice grip, ignoring my struggle as he began to wrap the wound with a napkin.

"Since the secret is out," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm register, "Jessie is moving in. Tonight."

"Shes young, shes inexperienced. Youve done this before. Youre going to help her through the pregnancy."

I stared at him, certain he had lost his mind. "You... what?"

He twisted his wedding band, then reached up to pinch my cheek, a gesture that felt like a threat. "Be a good girl, Margot. Jessie will be here in an hour. Ive already called your department head and told them youre taking a sabbatical. Youll have plenty of time to look after her."

I couldn't hold it back anymore. I let out a jagged, hysterical laugh. "Youre sick. You want your wife to be a servant to your mistress? Youre delusional, Wyatt."

He leaned in, pressing a finger to my lips. "Shh. Keep your voice down. You wouldn't want your mother to hear about this, would you? Shes still in the cardiac ward, Margot. The doctors say she cant handle any sudden stress."

The blood drained from my face. My mother.

Wyatt had been a nobody when I met him. My mother was the only one who believed in him, even giving him the seed money for his first startup. She loved him like a son.

"If you don't behave," Wyatt whispered, his smile never wavering, "I can't guarantee that a 'leak' won't make its way to her hospital room. Think about it."

He checked his Patek Philippe. "Jessie will be here in five minutes. You have that long to get yourself together."

I slumped against the wall, my fist clenched until the knuckles turned white, before finally, helplessly, letting go. I nodded.

Wyatt kissed my forehead as if rewarding a pet. Then he turned and walked toward the door to greet her.

Parker pushed past me, shoulder-checking me aside. The boy who usually acted like a forty-year-old executive was suddenly buzzing with excitement, his eyes fixed on the front door.

I sank to the floor, the lab result for my own pregnancy still hidden in the waistband of my skirt.

The front door opened. My eyes locked with Jessies. Her belly was just beginning to show under a tight silk dress. She didn't look like a scared student anymore. She looked like a conqueror.

"Professor," she cooed, her eyes dancing with malice. "Im so looking forward to learning from you."

I stayed silent. Parker stepped forward, his voice demanding.

"Mom, move your stuff out of the master suite. Jessie needs the space, and youre old anyway. You can sleep in the guest wing."

"Fine," I said, my voice dead.

If my husband and son were gone, what did a bedroom matter?

Wyatt blinked, seemingly surprised by my compliance. He remembered the woman I used to bethe one who fought for every inch of her territory.

I turned to walk away, but Wyatt caught my arm. "Not so fast. Since youre being so accommodating, why don't you finish clearing out the room now? Jessie needs to settle in."

Jessie moved closer, hooking her arm through mine in a mock-intimacy that made my skin crawl. "Thank you, Professor. I really want the baby to be close to you. Maybe your 'wisdom' will rub off on her. Ohand make sure you get the dust under the bed. I have terrible allergies."

She was treating me like a maid. And Wyatt and Parker just watched.

I wrenched my arm away. "There are twenty housekeepers on payroll. Let them do it."

"Margot," Wyatts voice was a warning bell. "Don't test me. You can leave, but remember your mother. If you won't do it, maybe we should bring her here so she can help?"

The threat hit its mark. I turned and walked into the master bedroom. I started pulling my clothes from the closet, my hands shaking.

Parker followed me in. He didn't help. Instead, he started grabbing my perfume bottles, my jewelry boxes, my silk scarves, and throwing them out into the hallway.

Glass shattered. Precious things Id collected for decades were ruined in seconds.

"Youre too slow, Mom," he said, his face a mask of indifference. "Besides, this stuff is all old. It belongs in the trash."

Wyatt appeared in the doorway, looking at the mess. He actually had the nerve to look pitying. "Look, Margot, Ill make it up to you. Ill buy those beachfront villas in Malibu you liked and put them in your name. Just... take a break. Stay in the guest wing for a while."

The hypocrisy was suffocating. I finished clearing the bare essentials and walked out without a word.

But thirty minutes later, a scream pierced the air from the master suite.

Two of Wyatts security guards intercepted me in the hall and forced me back toward the room.

There, on the Egyptian cotton sheets, a long sewing needle glinted in the light. Jessie was hysterical, buried in Wyatts chest.

"Wyatt, Im so scared! I felt it prick me. What if it hit the baby? What if shes hurt?"

Wyatt looked at me, his face contorted with disgust. "Margot, how could you be so petty? So cruel?"

"I thought you were a professional. A teacher. Have you no dignity? I told you Jessie wasn't a threat to your status, but you just couldn't help yourself, could you? You put a needle in her bed? You wanted to kill the baby?"

I stared at the needle. "I have no idea what youre talking about."

Parker, who had been standing in the corner, suddenly lunged.

Before I could react, he grabbed my right hand. A sharp, searing heat exploded in my wrist.

He had driven the needle into my arm.

My hand went numb instantly. Parker wasn't done; he swung his small fists at my stomach, his face red with rage.

"Bad Mommy! Evil Mommy! You tried to hurt the baby, so Im hurting you!"

The physical pain was nothing compared to the sound of his voice. I had spent years worrying that Parker was too stoic, too much like his father. I had prayed for him to show emotion, to cry, to laugh, to be a child.

And now he was, for the first time in his lifeand it was directed at me, in defense of a stranger.

I looked up at Wyatt. "Do you really believe I did this?"

Wyatt didn't answer. Jessie let out another theatrical wail.

"Wyatt, my stomach hurts. Something is wrong. If I lose this baby, I don't want to live!"

Wyatt scooped her up, his eyes narrowing as he looked at me one last time. "This was your fault, Margot. You brought this on yourself. Parker was just defending his sister."

He looked at the blood dripping from my wrist. "Its a scratch. Fix it yourself."

"And don't worry about your mother. Ive sent a private surgical team to her floor. Theyre monitoring her 24/7. As long as you stay in line, she stays alive."

He carried Jessie out of the room.

A sharp, cramping pain bloomed in my lower abdomen. I gasped, reaching out a hand to Parker, hoping for a flicker of the son I used to know.

But Parker shoved my hand away with a look of pure loathing and ran after his father.

I fell, my stomach slamming against the sharp edge of the coffee table. I felt a warm, terrifying rush of fluid between my legs.

Panic, primal and raw, took over. I used the last of my strength to scream.

"Parker! Stop! Please! Theres a babyyour real sisterplease, help me!"

Parker stopped in the doorway. He turned back, a cruel, mocking sneer on his face.

"Youre such a liar, Mom. Dad said youre too old and dried up to have kids. Youre just jealous because Jessie can do what you can't."

"My sister is in Jessies belly. Stop pretending, its pathetic."

The pain intensified, a dull roar in my ears. I tried to speak, but he was already gone.

In the end, it was a sympathetic maid who found me and called an ambulance.

When I woke up, the fluorescent lights of the hospital were blinding. A doctor stood at the foot of my bed, his face a mask of practiced sympathy.

"Im so sorry, Mrs. Scott. You were too far along for the trauma you sustained. We couldn't save the pregnancy."

"Don't lose hope," he added gently. "You're still young enough to try again."

I touched my stomach. It was flat. Empty.

Surprisingly, I didn't feel like crying. The grief was there, but it was overshadowed by a cold, dead certainty. There would be no "next time." Not with Wyatt. Not ever.

I slept for a few more hours, drifting in a morphine haze. When I finally reached for my phone to call a lawyer, it rang in my hand. It was the emergency room downstairs.

"Mrs. Scott? Your mothers condition has plummeted. You need to come down. Now. To say goodbye."

The world tilted. I ripped the IV out of my arm, ignored the blood spraying from my vein, and ran.

I reached the ICU unit, breathless and shaking. My mother was lying on a gurney in the hallway. Alone. There was only one intern standing over her.

"Where is everyone?" I grabbed the nurses arm. "Where is the surgical team? Where are the specialists?"

The intern looked down, avoiding my eyes. "Mr. Scott... he called them away. He said his wife was having an emergency on the upper floor and he needed the entire cardiac and trauma team up there immediately."

My heart stopped. Wyatt had pulled the doctors to attend to Jessies "fainting spell."

I dialed Wyatts number. It took ten tries before he picked up.

But it was Parker who answered.

"What do you want, Mom? Why are you calling?"

"Put your father on," I hissed, my voice trembling.

"Dads busy. Hes holding Jessies hand while she gets her ultrasound. Stop being a stalker."

He hung up.

My mothers breathing was becoming a series of ragged, wet gasps.

I called Wyatts personal assistant. I begged. I screamed into the phone.

"Margot, what is it now?" Wyatts voice finally came through, sounding bored.

"Wyatt, please. My mother is dying. She needs the surgeons. Please, send them back down. Im begging youIll do anything."

There was a pause. Then, a dry, cruel chuckle.

"Still with the theatrics? My team is already here, Margot. Stop trying to steal the spotlight from Jessie. Its transparent."

"No, Wyatt, pleaseshes literally dying"

"Then let her die," he snapped. "Im done with your lies."

The line went dead.

I stood there, paralyzed, as the monitor behind me flatlined into a long, continuous drone. I watched them pull the white sheet over my mothers face. I didn't have any tears left.

Hours later, my phone buzzed. A text from Wyatt.

Hows your mother? The team said she was stable. Don't worry, Ive got the best meds being flown in from Germany. Tonight is Parkers birthday dinner. Be there at seven. He wants that specific chocolate cake you make. Don't be late.

"Okay," I whispered to the empty room.

I went back to the OB/GYN wing. I asked the nurse for the remains of the child Id lost. I placed the small, clinical container inside a beautiful, silk-lined gift box.

Then I called a courier. I handed him my black Amex. "Deliver this to Wyatt Scott. Personally. In front of everyone."

At the gala dinner, Jessie was draped in diamonds, preening for the cameras. Parker was looking around, his eyes searching the crowd.

"Wheres Mom? Is she still throwing a tantrum?"

Wyatt checked his watch, his jaw tight. "Shell be here. She knows better than to miss this."

The courier arrived then. Wyatt smirked, assuming it was a peace offering. He took the box, his ego preening.

"See? She can't stay away. A cake is a bit much, but I suppose Ill forgive her this once"

He opened the box.

His face went from smug to a ghostly, translucent white in less than a second.