"Jill, sweetheart, I can't bear to leave you, and I can't bear to leave the baby. But this illness won't wait. I just don't have a choice."
Brad wrapped his arm around my shoulders, his eyes rimmed red.
"Honey, I've already hired a postpartum nurse for you. The second Mom's better, I'm coming straight home. I promise. Not one extra day."
I nodded and watched them leave.
It wasn't until they were gone that something occurred to me.
The moment it did, I grabbed my phone and called my parents, asking them to come over right away.
They must have heard the urgency in my voice, because they arrived in record time.
"What's going on, Jill? You sounded frantic on the phone."
I didn't hold back. I told them everything in one breath—how Brad and his mother had conspired to deceive me, how they were really going to take care of his pregnant mistress during her maternity recovery.
When I finished, my father couldn't believe it.
"Jill, could this be a misunderstanding? Everyone can see how good that boy is to you."
"And your mother-in-law has treated you like her own daughter all these years."
"Why would the two of them team up to lie to you?"
"What if it's just a coincidence? What if Jean really is sick?"