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“I know this is going to hurt like hell,” Janelle said to her husband one night, “but I think we should talk about rehoming Brandon or something like that because of my health. Understandably, you can't quit work to take care of us both and I'm not able to work nearly as much due to being so sick lately."
“Bring him to the hospital," Steven said.
Janelle blinked in confusion. She not only didn't like the indifference in Steven’s voice as if he had told her to bring the trash out, but she also didn't understand his statement.
"Why would we bring him to the hospital? He's not sick."
“There's a law that allows babies to be abandoned at hospitals which they’ll place for adoption," Steven explained. “I'm not sure what the timeline is on that but I'm pretty sure it's within the first 6 months from when the child was born. It's been almost 4 months so I wouldn't wait too long."
"Wow, are you sure? I never heard that before."
"You'll have to call and find out for sure."
"And you’re okay with that?”
The shrug.
“I don’t think we have any other choice, so I'll make some calls Monday morning," Janelle said trying to force a quiver into her voice to reflect a sadness she didn't actually feel. What she really felt was relief at the thought of getting rid of the costly little noisemaker. “Are you sure you're okay with this?"10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0sa9Cz2YnX
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Steven studied Janelle a moment and chose his words carefully so as not to set his delusional wife off. “As I said before, you do what you've got to do.”
Feigning a sniffle, Janelle rose from her seat and placed her arms around her husband’s shoulders. “We’ll get through this together.”
He stiffened, muttered something brief and unintelligible, but didn’t return his wife's embrace.
A few days later, they were off to the hospital. Steven drove Janelle and the screaming baby but he remained in the car.
“Do you want a few more minutes with him before we go in?” Janelle asked loudly over the infant’s typical cries of terror.
“No, you just go ahead and deal with it.”
“Gee, thanks,” Janelle said.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfpVKVTNuA4
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Her husband glanced at her and Janelle’s features softened. "I’m sorry. Goodbyes are always hard, especially of this kind.”
She opened the door and left with the baby and Steven gave an audible sigh of relief.
One down, one to go.
Back in the car 10 minutes later, Janelle described what happened even though Steven didn't ask and didn't care. “A couple of nurses took him but so much for anonymously doing this. I thought I could just drop him off, no questions asked. But from the get-go, they tried to get information from me even though I wouldn't give it to them. I wouldn't even let them have his carrier since the name of Ella’s friend is written underneath it. I felt it would be easier on us if we severed all ties completely. So I figured that if I didn't give any information, he wouldn't know who to look for if he got curious about his real mother as an adult.”
Steven continued to say nothing.
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"Do you think he'll be okay?”
Steven shrugged.
“That’s not an answer. You know I hate it when you don't answer with words."
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"I don't know."
"God, I hope he’ll be okay. But then at least you know that if someone adopts you, they actually wanted you as opposed to one who accidentally got pregnant when they didn't want to.”
Steven laughed to himself at his wife's idiocy. She wanted to get pregnant, didn't she? Yet here she was dumping the kid less than four months after it was born because she had some health issues.
They went home that Friday afternoon and Janelle tried to immerse herself in one of her “stories.” It was a silly, unrealistic, and rather immature story about a lesbian couple with perfect bodies and golden blonde hair involved in a perfect relationship in the perfect neighborhood and had the perfect child with lots of money to boot. She even called it The Perfect Love.
Basically, everything that Janelle didn't have in reality.
As she sat there plotting her perfect romance, her husband was plotting to drive Janelle out if she wasn't going to get herself imprisoned fast enough by smothering her with constant attention. This was something Janelle hated. She actually preferred to be left alone to do her own thing most of the time and wasn't ordinarily very chatty unless she wanted something from you or was trying to impress you.
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