When Love Became A Transaction

The phone rang, a sharp, unwelcome sound cutting through the quiet of my office. It was Olivia, my wife.

A smile touched my lips. Six months pregnant, a miracle after years of heartbreak.

"Hey, honey. Everything okay? Did you pick out a color for the nursery yet? I' m still team blue."

Then, silence. A heavy, dead-air kind of quiet.

Her voice, when it came, was a ghost: "Ethan… can you come to the hospital?"

My heart stopped. My mind raced through a thousand terrible possibilities, but none prepared me for the sight of her in the surgical waiting room, her face pale, her belly-our…