The Price of Your Shadow

When my wife went into labor, she insisted on having her childhood crush in the delivery room.

Even though I was upset, I reluctantly agreed.

Yet the moment the baby was born, she cradled him in her arms and showed him to him first.

Standing beside the bed, her crush looked at the newborn and asked, "Who do you think he looks like?"

Without a second of hesitation, my wife replied, "He definitely looks like you."

My heart turned to ice. The child I had spent months celebrating wasn't mine.

I could feel the sympathetic, uncomfortable stares of the doctors and midwives burning into me.