She looked pale and a little shaky as she stepped out into the waiting room. And the moment she appeared, Jack—my husband, who was supposedly drowning in a “hectic” day at the office—shot up from his chair. He didn’t just walk over to her; he rushed. He took her arm gently, guiding her toward a seat, looking at her with an intensity and concern that made my stomach churn with bile.
The betrayal hit me so hard I actually gasped aloud. Jack, my husband of a decade, and Chloe, my baby sister? It was the oldest, cruelest cliché in the book.
The sound of my gasp made Jack look up. His eyes locked onto mine, and the color drained from his face instantly. He looked like a ghost.
“Marilyn?” he stammered, his hand dropping from Chloe’s arm as if he’d been burned.
I stood up, my legs trembling. “Work is hectic, huh?” I said, my voice shaking with a rage I didn’t know I possessed. I held up my phone with his text on the screen. “Is this what you call work? Or is this just ‘overtime’ with my sister?”
The waiting room went dead silent. The receptionist stopped typing. A pregnant woman in the corner lowered her magazine.
“Marilyn, wait, please,” Jack said, stepping toward me with his hands up. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“Don’t give me that!” I shouted, tears stinging my eyes. I turned to Chloe. She was crying now, clutching her stomach. “And you. How could you? I trusted you!”
“Marilyn, stop!” Chloe cried out, her voice thin and weak. “Please, just listen!”
“I don’t want to listen! I want a divorce, and I never want to see either of you again!” I turned to storm out, unable to bear the humiliation.
“We did it for you!” Jack’s voice boomed across the room, stopping me with my hand on the doorknob.
I froze. I turned back slowly. “What did you say?”
Jack looked defeated. He walked over to Chloe and put a protective hand on her shoulder, but this time, he looked at me with pleading eyes. “We were trying to surprise you. But we needed to make sure it took first.”
I looked between them, confusion warring with my anger. “Make sure what took?”
Chloe wiped her eyes and reached into her purse, pulling out a flimsy strip of thermal paper. An ultrasound image.
“I’m not pregnant with Jack’s baby, Marilyn,” Chloe whispered. “I’m pregnant with yours.”
The air left the room.
For five years, Jack and I had tried everything. IVF rounds, hormone shots, holistic remedies. After my third miscarriage last year, the doctors told us my uterus simply couldn’t carry a child to term. It had broken me. I had resigned myself to a life without the family we dreamed of.
“We did the transfer three weeks ago,” Jack said softly, his voice cracking. “Chloe volunteered. She refused to let us pay a stranger, and she refused to let us give up. But we… we were so scared, Marilyn. We didn’t want to tell you until we heard a heartbeat. We couldn’t bear to see your heart break again if it didn’t work.”
I looked at Chloe. She nodded, a watery smile breaking through her tears. “I’m the gestational carrier, Marilyn. It’s your egg. It’s your baby. We were here for the first viability scan.”
My knees actually gave out. Jack caught me before I hit the floor, pulling me into a tight embrace. I buried my face in his chest, sobbing—not out of anger, but out of an overwhelming relief and gratitude that felt too big for my body.
“Did you hear it?” I mumbled into his shirt.
Jack pulled back, tears streaming down his own face now. He looked at Chloe, who held up the sonogram picture.
“Loud and strong,” Chloe said. “140 beats per minute.”
I looked at my husband, then at my sister—the two people I had accused of the worst betrayal imaginable—and realized they had actually conspired to give me the greatest gift of my life.
“I love you,” I whispered, pulling them both into a hug right there in the middle of the waiting room. “And Jack… you’re still in trouble for lying.”
He laughed, kissing my forehead. “I’ll take the heat. We’re going to be parents, Marilyn.”
