— You are nothing. You have no place in our family. GO, while my patience hasn’t run out.
Every Sunday the dinners at my husband’s mother’s house were real torture for me. The only thing that kept me there was my love for Adam.
His mother, Sophie Janet, always sat at the head of the table and began to reprimand me. My baking was “never good,” or I, Emma, had “ruined the life of her only and perfect son.”
But that evening her words were especially poisonous. There was something cold and contemptuous in her gaze that sent shivers through my body.
I tried to remain calm, but inside everything was boiling. They didn’t even suspect who I really was, or what secret I had been keeping for four months already.
Adam was silent. He didn’t lift his eyes from his plate while his mother continued to pour her venom.
— You are nothing. You don’t deserve my son. Leave, while I’m still kind. — she shouted and threw a plate full of hot soup at me. I was drenched completely but did not move. There was no anger left inside me anymore. Only a cold calm and a clear decision.
I stood up and walked out. Without noise. But I had a clear plan in my mind.
The next morning everyone was stunned by the news…
I returned home completely soaked but with clear thoughts. I took a small box from the shelf, sat in an armchair, and stared long at those two lines.
Four months ago they changed my life. But not in the way Sophie Janet would have imagined.
That evening I didn’t cry. I wrote a letter. The only letter — to Adam. Without tears, without accusations. Simply the truth.
About how his silence betrayed me, how his mother humiliated me, and how, despite all that, I was carrying their child in my womb.
In the end I added:
“You may be a father, if you wish. But only from afar. I choose freedom. For me and for our child.”
I disappeared. I changed my phone number. I changed cities. I started anew — from zero.
Seven months passed.
One evening my phone vibrated. I didn’t answer. A few minutes later a message came — not from Adam. From him.
“Emma. Forgive me. I didn’t know. Now I understand how much pain I caused you. Let me at least once see my grandchild…”
I stared at the screen for a long time. What did I feel? Anger? No. Pity? Not anymore. Perhaps… satisfaction. Quiet, deep, authentic.
I closed the message and placed my hand on my belly — the child was already beginning to make gentle movements felt. He was here.
I was no longer “nothing.” I was a mother. And that meant everything.
