My name is Oakley. Six months ago, I lost my baby at sixteen weeks.
They don’t tell you how deep that kind of grief cuts. How it hollows you out, leaving you walking around like a ghost of yourself. How every pregnant woman you pass on the street feels like a punch to the stomach. How your body betrays you, still carrying the faint shape of a belly that now holds nothing.
Mason, my husband, was supposed to be my rock. At first, he was. He held me as I cried, made me tea I couldn’t drink, whispered, “We’ll try again. We’ll get through this together.”
Then, slowly, he started to drift away.
“I’ve got a business trip to Greenfield,” he said one morning, tossing clothes into a suitcase.
“Another one? You just got back two days ago,” I said, my voice tight.
“It’s the Henderson account, babe. You know how important this is.”
I did know—or I thought I did. Mason worked in commercial real estate, and this Henderson account was supposedly his golden ticket. I kissed him goodbye, forcing a smile, and spent the next three nights alone in our bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering why grief felt heavier when you carried it alone.
Two months later, Mason was barely home. When he was, he was distant, distracted. He’d glance at his phone and smile, then snap back to a blank expression when he caught me watching.
“Who’s texting you?” I asked one night.
“Just work stuff,” he mumbled, eyes glued to the floor.
I wanted to fight, to grab his phone and see for myself. But I was exhausted from grief, from loneliness. So I nodded and went back to staring at nothing.
Then there’s Delaney—my sister. She has a way of making everything about her.
When I graduated college, she announced a successful interview that same day. When I got my first promotion, she showed up at my dinner in a neck brace from a “car accident” that was really a minor fender-bender in a parking lot.
So when she called a family gathering three months after my miscarriage, I should’ve known something was coming.
We were all at my parents’ house. Mom had made her famous pot roast. Dad was carving it. Aunt Sharon was complaining about her neighbors. It was almost normal—almost comforting—until Delaney stood up and tapped her wine glass with a fork.
“Everyone, I have an announcement,” she said, her voice quivering just enough to demand attention.
Mom’s face lit up. “Oh, honey, what is it?”
Delaney placed a hand on her stomach, eyes glistening with tears.
“I’m pregnant!”
The room erupted. Mom screamed and ran to hug her. Aunt Sharon cried. Dad looked proud and protective.
I froze. My chest felt like it had been shattered.
“But there’s something else,” Delaney continued, tears streaming. “The father… he doesn’t want anything to do with us. He left me. Said he wasn’t ready and just… walked away.”
Mom gasped, hand to her mouth. “Oh, sweetheart. Oh no.”
“I’m going to do this alone,” Delaney sobbed. “I’m scared. I don’t know how I’ll manage.”
Everyone rushed to comfort her. They promised help, praised her strength, called her brave. No one looked at me. No one asked how I was doing. My grief, my empty arms, vanished under the weight of her new tragedy.
I excused myself to the bathroom and threw up.
Three weeks later, the invitation came. Delaney was having a gender reveal party. I was invited.
“You don’t have to go,” Mason said when I showed him the pink envelope. It was one of the rare nights he was home. I was picking at a salad; he was drinking a beer.
“She’s my sister,” I said.
“She’s also been pretty insensitive about everything you’ve been through,” he said quietly.
His words shocked me—it was the first time in weeks he acknowledged my pain.
“I think I should go,” I said. “It’ll look weird if I don’t.”
He shrugged. “It’s your call.”
“Will you come with me?”
“Can’t. Meeting in Riverside,” he said, the excuse on his lips like a lie rehearsed a thousand times.
“On a Saturday?”
“The Henderson guy wants a weekend meeting at his lake house.”
I swallowed my hurt. “Okay.”
The party was exactly what I expected. White and gold balloons, streamers, dessert tables that could bankrupt a small business. A giant box waited in the center—pink or blue balloons inside. Delaney floated among the guests in a flowing white dress that showed off her bump. She was radiant, glowing, everything I was supposed to be.
“Oakley!” she called, spotting me. “You came! I wasn’t sure you would.”
“Of course I came,” I said, forcing a smile. Her bump pressed against me during the hug, and something inside me cracked further.
“Where’s Mason?” she asked. Her eyes flickered—sympathetic, yet amused.
“Work thing,” I said.
The party went on: games, guessing, opening presents. Each squeal of excitement twisted in my chest.
“You okay?” my cousin Rachel asked, touching my arm.
“Just need some air,” I muttered, slipping into a quiet garden corner. I sank onto a bench, closed my eyes, trying to breathe.
Then I heard them.
“Are you sure she doesn’t suspect anything?”
Mason’s voice. My Mason. Supposedly in Riverside.
“Please,” Delaney laughed. “She’s so wrapped up in misery, she barely notices you in the same room.”
I opened my eyes. Through the rose bushes, I saw them. Mason and Delaney, standing too close. Then he kissed her.
Not a friendly peck. Not an accident. Deep, familiar, intimate. A kiss that belonged to two people who had done this countless times before.
I stumbled forward through the bushes, thorns scratching my legs.
“What the hell is going on?!”
They sprang apart. Mason’s face was pale. Delaney’s calm, almost relieved.
“Oakley,” Mason began.
“Isn’t what? That you weren’t kissing my sister? Because that’s exactly what it looked like!”
People were noticing now, heads turning.
Delaney stepped forward. Calm, composed.
“You know what, Oakley? We were going to tell you eventually. But since you caught us… might as well put it all out there. Mason is the father of my baby.”
The world stopped. I couldn’t breathe.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.” She looked at Mason. “Tell her.”
He avoided my eyes. “It’s true.”
“How long?” I whispered.
“Does it matter?” Delaney asked.
“How. Long.”
“Six months,” Mason said.
Six months. While I grieved, while my womb was empty, while dreams we’d shared disappeared.
“I loved you,” I said, voice breaking.
“I know,” Mason replied. “But Oakley… after the miscarriage, the doctor said…”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t you dare.”
“You can’t carry another baby. Delaney can give me that,” he said anyway.
My heart shattered again.
“So what? I’m broken, so you traded me in?”
“Don’t make this dramatic,” Delaney said.
Mason pulled out an envelope. “Divorce papers. Signed.”
The party was silent. My parents frozen. Aunt Sharon wide-eyed.
“This is reality, Oakley,” Delaney said. “Time to deal with it.”
I looked at them—at my husband, at my sister, at the life built on my loss. Then I walked away.
I don’t remember driving home. I remember sitting in our empty house, ripping photos, tearing our marriage certificate, throwing his clothes off the balcony. I cried until nothing was left.
The next morning, my phone buzzed with dozens of calls and texts. “Watch the news,” one said.
I did.
“House fire in Elmwood leaves two homeless, one hospitalized,” the screen read. Delaney’s house. Her fire.
Rachel called. “She’s fine, baby’s fine, but she lost everything.”
I didn’t feel sorry. Just… a strange numb sense of justice.
Weeks later, Mason and Delaney appeared at my apartment. Exhausted, broken, asking for forgiveness.
“You think?” I said. “Karma’s already punished you harder than I ever could.”
I closed the door. Their cries echoed. I felt free.
Mason drank. They split. Delaney moved back in with our parents.
I ran into her once, weeks later, in the grocery store. She opened her mouth. I ignored her.
Some might say forgiveness is the key. But you don’t owe it to those who shattered you. You don’t have to. Let karma work, rebuild yourself—and that’s the sweetest revenge of all.