If the baby looks like my ex, I’ll walk away… I’ll give up everything and walk away!” Lera whispered in a hollow voice

“If the baby looks anything like him, Ill refuse I swear on my life, Ill refuse!” Lacey said in a flat, lifeless voice.

“Well, love, bit late for second thoughts nowjust got to wait it out,” the doctor concluded dryly. “Unless you fancy never having kids at all.”

Lacey stumbled out of the consultation room and sank onto the clinics stiff waiting-room sofa, trying to gather herself. The urge to cry clawed at her throat. She lifted her head and caught sight of the autumn wind outside, ruthlessly shaking the last stubborn leaves from the branches.

It felt like she was one of those brancheshelpless, exposed. And this baby? Entirely inconvenient. Three months ago, shed wanted nothing more. Funny how things change.

She pushed past a beaming couple in the corridorthe husband wrapping an arm around his wife, both glowing. The sight twisted the knife deeper. Lacey trudged to the bus stop.

Back home, she locked herself in her bedroom for nearly an hour. Her mum, Margaret, hovered outside, coaxing her to eat. Not a word in response. Defeated, Margaret retreated to the kitchen and sat there, stewing in the thick silence.

Eventually, Lacey emerged and slumped into a chair opposite her mother. They sat like that, mute, for ages.

“If it looks like him, Im giving it up I swear,” Lacey repeated, hollow.

Margaret jolted at that. “Good heavens, Lacey, have you lost the plot?” She only used her full name when dead serious. “A hardworking girl like you, throwing away her own child? Whatll the neighbors say? Your colleagues? And the poor things done nothing wrongits fathers the rotter, not it!”

“Who cares what people think?” Lacey snapped, wild-eyed, shoulders hunched like a cornered animal.

“I care. And Ill help you,” Margaret said firmly. “I wont let you abandon my grandchild.”

“You can barely make rentwhat help can you possibly be?”

“Well manage,” Margaret insisted. “People survived the Blitz, for heavens sake. Its 1989, not the Dark Ages.”

Lacey exhaled sharply. Fear gnawed at her alreadywhat lay ahead was a void. She had no idea the 90s would unleash their own special chaos. All she knew today was this: Darren had left her.

Theyd married six months ago after a year and a half together. No red flags, just a bright future for the happy couple.

Lacey remembered the day Darren came home a stranger. Hed tried to act normal, but the distance was obviousthe vacant stares, the way hed stopped loving her.

Hed known she was pregnant. That guilt anchored him; otherwise, hed have bolted sooner. A month of bewildered questioning later, he finally walked outand only then did she learn why.

Shed been mid-meltdown when Darrens mum, Brenda, showed up in tears, equally blindsided by her sons betrayal.

The trouble had started back in sixth form. During a school camping trip, Darren had met Vikki. Two weeks of teenage infatuation, addresses exchangedthen lost when he moved house. No letters came.

Hed moved on. Or thought he had. Three years later, he met Lacey, convinced Vikki was history. They married, started trying for a baby.

Then Vikki reappearedno address, just a local paper ad Darren miraculously spotted. He booked her a hotel room.

At first, he just wanted closure. Instead, they reignited instantly. The decision wrecked him, but he made it: leave pregnant Lacey, run off with Vikki.

Workmates rallied around Lacey. A new colleague sighed, “A babys a blessingmy husband and Ive been trying five years.”

“Keyword: *husband*,” Lacey muttered. No joy left in this pregnancyjust the ache of abandonment.

At home, Margaret tiptoed around her grief. Then Brenda visited, weeping, begging Darren and Lacey to reconcile. Shed never warm to Vikkinot after Darren followed her halfway across the country (never mind that hed chosen to).

Their fussing was suffocating yet comforting. But Laceys real terror? Facing the baby.

What if it had Darrens eyes, his nose, his mouth? A lifelong reminder of his betrayal? That thought paralyzed her.

Discharged from hospital, Lacey hadnt expected a crowd: Margaret, ex-mother-in-law Brenda, her best mate Sarah with husband in tow, her sister with a niece, even her tiny office team.

Everyone clamored to hold the baby. Everyone cooed over mum and child. Back home, Brenda cradled her grandson, tearfully whispering, “Spitting image of Darren.”

Lacey heard. She took the boy and said, “Not Darren. *Ethan*.”

Brenda and Margaret exhaled. Crisis averted.

Twenty years later, in 2010, Ethan was a third-year uni student doting on his two little sisters. Hed been a mini-parent to them as toddlers.

Lacey had remarried five years after Ethans birtha kind stepdad to her son, a real father to her girls. She adored them all, but Ethan? Her heart lived in that boy. The memory of her hospital-bed threat haunted her. Unthinkable now.

Darren and Vikkis “great love” lasted five years. Vikki moved abroad with their daughter. Darren remarried, saw Ethan occasionally.

Lacey didnt interfere. She felt nothing for her exjust the man whod fathered her beloved Ethan.

Thanks for reading, lovelies! Hope you enjoyed.