At a party with friends, my professor husband suddenly got down on his knees in front of me. His voice was rough. "Mia matched with you. We can't wait any longer for the surgery." I froze for a second. But I wasn't really surprised. "A person only has one heart." "I'll find the best doctor in the country. You'll get an artificial heart." "I'm three months away from giving birth." "There will be other babies. Forget this one." Before he finished, a girl's laugh rang out from behind him. "Professor Lane, April Fools'!" "There was never a match. I was just messing with you. I can't believe you actually went and begged her." The mood warmed up fast. Friends started laughing and teasing. "That joke was way over the line, Jake." "If Mia said she matched with me, I'd already be strapped to an operating table, right?" Only me. I sat quietly on the couch and took out my phone. I booked an abortion for the next day. ...... Jake had never really been mad at Mia. He always handled that sickly student of his with care. But this time, when he stood up from the floor, his face was dark. For once. Everyone slowly stopped laughing. The air went still for almost half a minute. Someone quietly warned Mia. "You just stepped on a landmine. Everyone at this school knows Jake is scared of his wife. His first year teaching, some guy made a casual joke about Sarah. Jake beat him so bad he ended up in the ER.โ Mia's eyes went red fast. She carefully tugged at Jake's sleeve. "I'm sorry, Professor Lane. It's April Fools'. I just thought it would be funny." The man didn't speak. So she turned to me and sniffled. "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean it. If you're mad, yell at me. I'll take it." Friends tried to smooth things over. "She's just careless. She didn't think it through. Don't take it to heart, you two." "Come on, Jake. You've mentored her for three years. You even thanked her in your acknowledgments. Are you really going to let one April Fools' joke ruin that?" Jake's face finally softened. He reached up and wiped Mia's tears. "Don't make jokes like that again." Mia nodded quickly. Then he looked at me. His voice had some guilt in it. "Sorry, Sarah. I didn't check the facts before coming to you for help." A heart transplant โ something that huge โ and he summed it up as "help." It wasn't the first time. Whenever Mia was involved, Jake Lane โ normally so clear-headed โ turned emotional, stupid, and panicked. He once drove eight hundred miles on Thanksgiving night because she called and said she had bad cramps. When people asked, he just sighed. "That girl is fragile. I was afraid something would happen to her." But I was home waiting all night with a five-month belly. He wasn't worried. I couldn't speak from how often I was cramping. He wasn't worried. My morning sickness, swelling, hair loss. He wasn't worried. With me, he was always as rational as a machine. "Sarah, pregnancy is hard. It'll be over once the baby comes." I got irritable, short-tempered. He blamed it on hormones, threw out a few empty words, and went into his study. Every time. I just swallowed my feelings and didn't go after him. But that research paper โ the one he spent five years on โ the first name in the acknowledgments was Mia's. An undergrad with basically no real skills. By the time I found out, it had already made the news. In the interview, Jake acted like it was nothing. "I've taught for five years. Mia isn't the most gifted student I've ever had. But she's definitely the toughest." "I'm grateful she came into my life. She gave me the courage to keep doing research."That day, I dropped my favorite vase and it broke. Jake saw it. He just calmly told the housekeeper to clean it up. But that vase โ we made it together at a pottery workshop in Nashville, back when our relationship was at its best. He even said, with a straight face, that it would be our family heirloom. "Maybe I can glue it back together." I squatted on the floor. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely pick up the pieces. He frowned and pulled me to my feet. "It's just a cheap vase." My eyes got red. He just glanced at my belly. "Is the baby bothering you again?" I told myself it was fine. He was a rational person. It made sense that he didn't care about sentimental things. But that night, when I brought him fruit in his study, I saw a locked glass cabinet. Inside, carefully preserved, was a pen from a stationery store โ the twenty-dollar kind. A gift from Mia. In that moment, it was like someone dumped ice water over my head. We had a huge fight. I even smashed the glass cabinet and threw the pen in the trash. But the next second, he picked it out, cleaned it off like it was something precious. When he looked at me again, his eyes were full of annoyance. "Sarah, go look in the mirror. See what ......
