The Group Scattered, Half a Lifetime Apart

Five months pregnant, and my husband set up a group chat just for me. He called it Countdown to Baby.

His mother was in it, the postpartum nurse, the nanny, the driver, and Dylan Delgado's assistant.

The only one not in it was Dylan himself.

I asked him why he didn't join.

He kept his head down, working on his tie, his voice flat.

"You can all handle those little things. It just annoys me to read it."

Every day the group talked about formula, diapers, who'd stay in the delivery room.

Every time I posted something, all he had his assistant send back was "Noted."

I thought he was just the kind of man who couldn't stand fussy little details.

Until the day his phone was left on the dining table.

The screen lit up, and a new group message popped up.

The group was called: "Hazel's Welcome-Home Surprise Team."

Dylan had sent over a hundred messages in it.

Asking whether her bad stomach could handle cold drinks, whether the airport bouquet should skip the lilies, whether the hotel pillows would be too soft.

The last one.

"She hates noise. Don't send too many people to the airport. I'll carry her out myself."

I stared at that line for a long time.

So it wasn't that the little details bothered him.

He just didn't think me and the baby were worth his time.

At ten that night, the pregnancy chat was still asking me where I'd put the hospital bag.

I didn't type a single word. I just left the group.

From that moment, the baby and I walked out of his life.

......

Less than three minutes after I left, his assistant Eugene Dickerson called.

"Ma'am, the group... did you leave it by accident?"

"Mr. Delgado asks if you'd like to be added back."

"It wasn't an accident."

"Then what should I tell Mr. Delgado?"

"Whatever you want."

The call ended. Dylan's phone, still on the dining table, was still lit.

In "Hazel's Welcome-Home Surprise Team," someone asked if she'd want a blanket in case she got cold. He replied:

"Get one. Not too thick, she thinks heavy ones are a bother."

And when I said my stomach hurt in the pregnancy chat, all Eugene sent back for him was:

"Noted."

At eleven, Dylan came home carrying honey almond cake.

I said:

"I left the group."

His hands stopped on his tie.

"Eugene told me."

"You're not going to ask me why?"

He poured a cup of warm water, pressed the pad of his finger to the side of the cup.

"A hundred and eight. Just right."

I was about to make an excuse for him when my phone rang.

A voice message from Hazel:

"Dylan, my stomach hurts. Maybe the plane food was too cold."

Dylan picked up his car keys.

"You're going out?"

"She just got back. She's got no one around her."

"I've got no one around me either."

He frowned.

"Peggy Winfield, why are you comparing yourself to her?"

"She's different."

I said:

"I'm only five months along. I'm not made of steel."

He laughed.

"It's not like I'm ignoring you."

"There's a whole house of people here. Do I really have to watch over you myself?"

At the door, he turned back.

"Finish the water."

"Don't skip eating again just because I went out for a while."

"You think I'm faking?"

"You're harder to please than you used to be."

After the door closed, the water went cold fast.

Ten minutes later, Eugene pulled me into a new group.

The name: "Pregnancy Logistics."

His mother, the postpartum nurse, the nanny, the driver, the nutritionist, the family doctor's assistant, all there. Still no Dylan.

I'd been muted.

The pinned notice read:

"Pregnant woman prone to mood swings. All contact goes through Eugene."

In the spreadsheet, my weight, blood pressure, sleep, morning sickness, and fetal movement were all laid out, clear as day.

I tried to type. A prompt popped up on the screen.

"You have been muted by an administrator."

The baby stirred softly inside me.

I laid my hand there and said quietly:

"Don't wait for him anymore."

My pregnancy was an item on his to-do list.

Her stomachache was pinned to the top.

The next morning, the pregnancy logistics chat lit up with a photo of the half-glass of milk I hadn't finished the night before.

Mrs. Acevedo replied:

"She's got a temper. Don't indulge her. The baby comes first."

Dylan peeled an egg and set it in my bowl.

"Eat."

I didn't move.

He looked up.

"Sulking over a group chat again?"

"Can you stop lecturing me all the time?"

"Stop making trouble and I won't have to remind you."

Mrs. Acevedo came in.

"Hazel's welcome dinner is tonight. You'll go with Dylan."

I gripped my cup.

"I'm not going."

Dylan set down his coffee.

"You have to go."

"So I can prove there's nothing between you and her?"

"People are talking. Just show your face, then it's over."

I said I couldn't stand the smell of alcohol.

He only said, "Sit for a while. Do it for me."

"And what about me being humiliated?"

He looked at me.

"You're Mrs. Delgado. Everyone out there will only praise you for being sensible."

That night, the old Delgado house.

Dylan opened the car door for me and shielded the roof with his hand.

I'd barely gotten my footing when Hazel came running out.

"Dylan."

The hand steadying me let go at once, and he draped his coat over her shoulders.

"Why did you come out here?"

"It's cold outside."

At the table, Hazel sat on his right, and I sat on his left.

Mrs. Acevedo took out a red velvet box.

Inside was my jade bracelet.

She'd said my hands were swollen from the pregnancy and she'd keep it for me. So it turned out she'd meant to give it away all along.

"It wasn't easy for Hazel to come back this time. Take this, it'll settle your nerves."

Mrs. Acevedo looked at me.

"Peggy won't mind, will you?"

I pressed a hand to my belly. "I mind."

Tears slid down Hazel's face.

Dylan set down his chopsticks.

"It's just a bracelet. Do you have to ruin the mood?"

"Then have her give it back to me."

He didn't move.

Mrs. Acevedo pushed the bracelet into my hand.

"You put it on her yourself, and all that talk out there will die down on its own."

I looked at Dylan.

He said, "Just once. Don't make me look bad."

"I don't want to."

His voice went soft.

"Behave today, and tomorrow I'll go with you to the checkup."

He'd finally said he'd go with me. And it was so I'd put the bracelet on Hazel.

He leaned in a little more.

"I already promised I'd go to the checkup with you. Don't leave me with no way to save face."

In the end, I put it on Hazel.

Hazel pulled her hand back a little.

"Peggy, I'm afraid the baby will hide from me too, later on."

Dylan looked at me at once.

"She's pregnant. Don't provoke her with the baby."

"You too. Don't frighten her."

Then he lowered his voice.

"What you did just now. It looked pretty bad."

Hazel lifted her face and smiled.

"Then from now on, I'll really treat this place as home."

Dylan smiled.

"It always was."

The family chat pinged soon after.

Mrs. Acevedo had posted the video of me putting the bracelet on Hazel.

"Peggy said it herself. Hazel's family now."

Right after that, my own social media feed updated.

"Welcome home, Hazel."

"You posted that from my phone?"

"You went to the restroom just now. It wasn't locked."

"What gives you the right?"

"The right of you being my wife."

"One word from you counts for more than a hundred explanations from me."

Then he said it to everyone at the table.

"From now on, Hazel is the baby's godmother."

I stood up.

"I can't eat this dinner."

Dylan's face darkened.

"What will people think?"

"Whatever they think, isn't that all what you taught them?"

As I walked out the front door, I deleted the post.

But the screenshots and the video had already gotten out.

When Hazel chased after me, she was still clutching that jade bracelet.

"Peggy, don't be angry."

Her voice was very soft.

"If I'm the reason you and Dylan fought, I really don't know what to do."

I ignored her and turned to leave.

But she reached out and grabbed the strap of my bag.

I pulled back, and the bunny charm on my bag slid out from my scarf and swung once.

Hazel's gaze suddenly stopped.

It was the little charm Grandma Abbott had sewn for me, copied from an old bunny. I rarely brought it out.

She stared at it for two seconds, then said softly, "This little bunny of yours... it doesn't look like something you bought new."

My steps froze.

I'd never mentioned Grandma to her, never said a word about the bunny.

But she quickly lowered her head and gave a small laugh.

"It's nothing. I just thought it looked special."

Dylan didn't come with me to the checkup.

At seven that morning, he texted:

"Something came up. Eugene will go with you."

At nine, standing in the hospital hallway, I scrolled past Hazel's post.

A photo of a VIP-room breakfast, and in the corner, Dylan's cufflink.

When the checkup was over, the doctor asked:

"Where's the family?"

"Busy," I said.

The doctor frowned.

"A pregnant woman isn't a machine."

Eugene came toward me.

"Mr. Delgado wants to know how did the checkup go?"

"Why can't he ask himself?"

Back home, my illustrations were spread across the study desk.

The picture book I'd spent half a year on, Home to the Clouds.

Grandma always said:

"A woman needs a path of her own."

I'd poured everything into this book.

In the story, little Cloud clutches a worn-out bunny, makes it through wind and rain, and finally finds a small house of her own.

The bunny stitched onto my bag, Grandma made that for me by hand.

I'd sent the illustrations to Dylan once. I'd sent him voice memos, too.

I said:

"The bunny isn't a toy. It's the way home."

"My parents died when I was little, and whenever I was scared, Grandma would press the bunny into my hands and tell me I wasn't a child nobody wanted."

Three hours later, Dylan replied with a single word.

"Mm."

I thought he hadn't listened.

Until the editor from the publishing house called.

"Peggy, what's going on with that Delgado teaser?"

"How did Hazel become the lead creator?"

"What?"

"Home to the Clouds got renamed Hazel's Moon House. You didn't know?"

I opened the livestream.

Hazel sat onstage, her eyes a little red.

"This book is tied to something from my childhood."

She said that as a girl she'd been afraid of the dark, that there was an old bunny that kept her company, that it wasn't a toy, it was the way home.

Cold spread through me.

Every word she said came from the voice memos I'd sent Dylan.

On the stream, Hazel froze on the page about the old bunny.

The camera panned to the audience.

Dylan sat in the front row and quietly prompted her.

"It's the way home."

So he hadn't failed to understand.

He'd understood the small ache I'd hidden in those pictures.

And he'd taken that understanding and used it to coach Hazel through a performance of tender feeling.

I rushed to the launch, but security stopped me.

"Sorry, you don't have an invitation."

"I'm the original author."

Dylan came out.

"Come with me."

In the lounge, I laid the original manuscript, the emails, and the raw voice files in front of him.

"Is that enough?"

Dylan glanced down at them.

"I know."

The cold went through me.

"Then why did you still put her onstage?"

"Hazel just came back to the country. People are already talking about her."

"She can't have another scandal."

He paused, then added:

"This involves several companies. If you make a scene now, everyone looks bad."

"And me? What about my name?"

"How am I supposed to get work after this?"

"Peggy, I'm protecting the project."

I laughed in spite of myself.

"You strip my name off it and call that protecting the project?"

He looked away from me.

"That voice memo was only creative reference."

"Reference?"

I pointed at Hazel on the screen outside.

"She took the bunny my grandma sewed for me and called it her own childhood."

"Dylan, you handed her my wound and put her onstage to cry over it."

He was silent for a moment.

"She doesn't understand the heart of it. I was helping her get into the feeling."

I asked, "Whose feeling?"

"My parents dying young, Grandma sewing that bunny, me holding it and crying in the middle of the night, those are mine."

"You treated my wound like her research material?"

His face finally went pale for a second.

Hazel's voice came from outside the door:

"Dylan, the media are asking for details, I'm a little scared"

Dylan turned almost at once.

I grabbed his sleeve.

"If you walk out there today, every word she says onstage is spoken over my name."

He looked back.

"Then just do me this one favor."

"And if I don't?"

His eyes went cold.

"The statement's already out."

"You rush out there now, and people will only say the pregnant woman lost her mind."

I let go of his sleeve.

He pushed the door open and said to Hazel:

"Don't be afraid. I'm here."

That night, the Delgado Foundation's statement shot to the top of the trending list.

"Ms. Winfield was merely a research assistant. The circulating claims about the original author are false."

A project editor also quietly forwarded me screenshots from the "Hazel Project" group chat.

In them, Dylan had forwarded my voice memo into the group.

Underneath it, he'd added a line:

"This is the old bunny story Peggy once told me. Hazel, get familiar with the emotion first. Don't read it off word for word, tell it as your own experience."

A few minutes later, Hazel replied:

"Understood."

"Dylan, I know how to make it sound more like my own now."

So it wasn't that he couldn't understand my loneliness.

He just took my loneliness and used it to make someone else look good.

After the Delgado statement went out, I stopped crying.

I opened my laptop and copied the original manuscript onto a USB drive.

Grandma always said:

"Don't grit your teeth through every wrong they do you. Always leave yourself a way out."

I put the drive, my passport, my ID, my prenatal record book, and the key to Grandma's old house all into my bag.

I had just reached the entryway when the doorbell rang.

Hazel was standing outside.

"Peggy, can we talk?"

"No."

She kept her head down.

"I never meant to take anything from you."

"I just... I wanted so badly to start over."

"And starting over means taking what belongs to someone else?"

Her tears spilled over.

"Dylan said you'd get other chances. But I'm not like you."

My phone rang.

The caregiver's voice was shaking.

"Miss Winfield, come to the hospital, quickly!"

"The old lady suddenly lost consciousness. The doctor's telling family to get here right away."

I grabbed my bag and headed for the door.

Hazel caught my arm.

"Peggy, don't go yet..."

I shook her off. "Move!"

She staggered against the wall, and the next second she was sobbing out loud.

"I wasn't stopping you, I only wanted to apologize..."

Dylan's call came in at once.

"Peggy, what did you do to Hazel?"

"My grandmother's dying. I'm going to the hospital right now."

There was a beat of silence on the other end.

"Don't leave the house."

"What did you say?"

"The media is out hunting for whoever leaked this."

"You walk out with that drive, one photo, and Hazel is finished."

The "Hazel crisis PR" group chat kept buzzing with alerts.

He was arranging trending topics, cease-and-desist letters, hotel security.

And my grandmother had one breath left.

"Dylan, the one she wants to see is me!"

His tone turned weary.

"Peggy, what does it change if you go now?"

My whole body went rigid.

He said:

"The doctors can save her. You can't."

"But if you go out, Hazel gets destroyed."

"So her reputation matters more than my grandmother's life?"

"Don't twist it around. I'm just telling you to calm down."

I hung up and pulled the door open.

Eugene and two bodyguards were blocking the doorway.

"Ma'am, Mr. Delgado says you can't leave."

"Move."

Eugene lowered his head.

"Mr. Delgado says he'll handle things at the hospital."

"My grandmother can't wait for him to handle it!"

I slapped him across the face.

The two bodyguards reached out, then pulled back.

I stood there with my belly out to here, and they didn't dare touch me.

The housekeeper looked down and took out my document folder and my car keys.

The ones I'd just packed, ready to take with me.

"Ma'am, Mr. Delgado said to hold on to these, so you don't do anything rash."

He wasn't afraid I'd do something rash.

He was afraid I'd leave with the evidence.

In the confusion I squeezed past Eugene's side.

"Ma'am, you're pregnant, don't run!"

I gripped the handrail and went down.

Nineteenth floor.

Eighteenth floor.

Seventeenth floor.

The caregiver called again, crying.

"Miss Winfield, the old lady came around for a moment, she keeps calling for you..."

At the fifteenth-floor turn, a sharp pain twisted through my lower belly.

My legs buckled and my knee cracked against the step.

A few seconds later something warm ran down my leg.

Eugene's face changed in an instant.

"Ma'am!"

My phone hit the steps.

Through it came the caregiver's broken sobbing.

"Miss Winfield... the old lady, she... she's gone..."

I lay against the steps, my ears ringing.

The last time my grandmother called for me, Dylan had me held back inside my own home.

The hospital's white lights stung my eyes.

A nurse wheeled me toward the ER.

"Twenty weeks pregnant, bleeding, notify obstetrics."

The doctor came with a form.

"There's a risk of miscarriage. She needs to be admitted for observation."

"Where's the family?"

My hand shook too hard to hold the pen.

"I'll sign."

As I finished the last stroke, the door pushed open.

Dylan stood in the doorway, rain on his shoulders.

His first glance wasn't at my blood, or the admission form. It went straight to the USB drive in my palm.

"Peggy, you really had to force me to back down like this?"

I looked at him and couldn't speak.

He took two steps closer and finally saw the red on the sheets.

But the next second, a furious voice rang out:

"Hazel slit her wrist."

"Are you satisfied now?"