“‘If the baby looks like my ex, I’ll turn it down… I’ll bring it into the world and still refuse!’ Lera said in a monotone voice.”

If the child turns out to look like his father, Ill turn away Ill bring a life into the world and then abandon it! Pri­marytone, colourless, whispered Primrose.

Enough, love, youve realised too late. Now you just have to wait for the deadline, the doctor concluded. Otherwise you may end up childfree.

Primrose slipped out of the consultation room, sank onto the settee to steady herself. An angry sting rose in her throat, as if she might burst into tears. She lifted her gaze and saw the autumn wind outside rattling the last bare branches of the garden.

It felt as though she herself were a branch, stripped and useless, and that the baby she had once craved three months earlier now seemed entirely out of place. How quickly everything had shifted.

She left the clinic and passed a laughing couple strolling handinhand; the man embraced his wife, both smiling. The sight cut her deeper. Primrose shuffled toward the bus stop.

When she finally reached her flat, she locked herself in her bedroom and stayed there for almost an hour. Her mother, Ethel, kept urging her to eat, but the daughter said nothing. Ethel drifted into the kitchen, sat down and stared, the flat thick with a heavy silence.

Soon Primrose emerged, sat opposite her mother at the kitchen table, and they remained mute for a while longer.

If he looks like his father, Ill turn away Ill bring a life into the world and then abandon it, Primrose repeated, her voice flat as a washedout canvas.

Ethel flinched at once; her daughters words jolted her awake.

Thats enough! Valerie, think before you speak! Ethel, trying to be serious, addressed her by full name.

A healthy, diligent girl would never renounce her own child. What would the relatives say? What would your colleagues think? How will you live? What will people whisper? And its not the childs fault that the father has failed her.

I could care less about the pity of strangers! Primrose shrieked, looking as trapped as a cornered beast. Her large brown eyes widened with fear, lips trembling, shoulders slumped.

Ill feel for you and help you, Ethel replied. And I wont let you abandon your own grandson.

You survive on a meagre wage, they dont even pay you, what aid can you offer?

Well make do, the mother insisted. In hard times people survived; now, in peaceful times, its 1989.

Primrose exhaled heavily. Fear already clutched her, and the future stretched into an unknown darkness. She did not yet know that the next nine years would reveal a cruel twist, but she knew one thing: Simon had left her.

They had married six months earlier, after a yearandahalf of courting. Nothing had foretold disaster for the young, beautiful pair.

Primrose could picture, minute by minute, the day Simon returned home a different man. He tried to be compliant, as he always had, but his detachment, his faraway stare, betrayed a husband who no longer loved her.

He already knew that her lingering hope tormented him; otherwise he would have walked out sooner. For a month Primrose pressed him for answers, and only when he finally left did she learn the reason.

She fell into a hysteria when Simons mother arrived, crying for her sons unexpected turn.

The story stretched back to school days. When Simon entered his final year, he joined a youth trekking group that travelled across the countryside. There he met Clara, fell instantly in love, and spent two weeks inseparable from her. When the group dispersed they exchanged addresses, but Simon, moving into a new flat, lost hers; she never wrote.

Eventually he tried to forget her, but realisation struck that she had been his only true love. Three years later, he met Primrose, assuming Clara was a thing of the past, and within two years they were married and awaiting a baby.

Clara resurfaced unexpectedly. She, too, had lost the address, but knowing Simons town, placed a notice in the local newspaper. The advert reached Simon, who invited her to stay in his city, booking a hotel room for her.

At first he wanted merely to see the girl he had not been able to forget for years, but their meeting immediately rekindled old sparks. It was a hard decision, but he chose it: abandon his wife Primrose, who was waiting for a child, and go away with Clara.

At work, everyone backed Primrose. A newly hired colleague, noticing her gloom, said,

A child is a blessing, yet my own marriage has been stagnant for five years.

Exactly, with my husband, Primrose replied, bitterly. Theres no joy left in awaiting a firstborn; the hurt of being abandoned gnaws at me.

At home, Ethel tried to soothe Primroses grief. One day the motherinlaw appeared, burst into tears, and pleaded that Simon and Primrose should be together. She pitied Clara, the new wife, merely because Simon had taken her a thousand miles away. In truth, Simon had left of his own wish.

The thought of two future grandmothers gathering around her child made Primrose both uneasy and slightly relieved, yet the greatest terror lingered: what if the baby inherited Simons eyes, nose, lips? Would she spend her life watching her child and recalling the betrayal? That dread held her frozen.

When Primrose was finally discharged from the hospital, she did not expect such a crowd. Her mother Ethel, her former motherinlaw Vera, a close friend with her husband, her older sister with a niece, and the whole tiny office arrived.

Everyone wanted to hold the newborn, to wish health upon mother and child. As the baby boy was presented, the former motherinlaw cradled him, smiled, wept, and whispered,

Simons little bastard.

She thought Primrose wouldnt hear, but she did. She stepped forward, took the infant and said,

Hell be called Ian, not Simon.

Both the motherinlaw and Ethel exhaled with relief: all was well.

Two decades later, in 2010, Ian was a thirdyear university student. At home he cared for two younger sisters, loving them with all his heart, often acting as a real nanny when they were infants.

Valeriewho had married five years after Ians birthhad a husband who became a kind stepfather to her son, almost like his own, and later the father of two daughters.

Primrose adored her daughters, but felt no affection for her son Ian. The moment she once promised, in a heated argument, to leave the newborn in the hospital if he resembled his father still haunts her; the memory is terrifying.

Simon and Clara divorced after five years. Clara moved abroad with her daughter. Simon remarried, lives moderately well, and sees Ian now and then.

Valerie does not interfere, feeling utterly indifferent toward her former husband; the only person she still feels for is Ians biological father, Ian himself.

Thank you, dear readers, for your likes and comments. Enjoy the rest of the tale.