After giving birth, my husband left me only one baby, but at the nurse’s whisper, the smile disappeared from his face

When I came to my senses, my husband told me that one of our two children had died, but in his voice at that moment I heard not grief for the first time, but relief.

The curtains in the room were half-drawn. Milky morning light came through the window, and cold steam rose from the silver thermos placed beside the bed. My whole body hurt. My abdomen was empty and heavy, as if some large part of me had been torn out.

Mark was holding my hand with both of his hands.

“Nina, can you hear me?”

I barely moved my lips.

“The babies… where are they?”

His face tightened. Then he lowered his eyes.

“The doctors did everything. They could not save one.”

The words fell into the room and scattered across the floor like shattered glass.

“Which one?”

Mark looked at me quickly.

“It doesn’t matter now. We still have one boy. We must take care of him.”

I was crying. He was crying too. His shirt collar was wet, and he was wearing a hospital plastic bracelet on his wrist. When I looked at everyone, Mark seemed like a hero—a husband who had spent three days on a chair and had not left his wife.

I believed him.

I spent the next two days in a fog. Sometimes my mother came, sometimes a doctor, sometimes Mark with a small paper cup of coffee. The smell of chlorine and burnt coffee constantly stood in the room. Mark straightened my pillow, gave me water, and repeated every time:

“Now we must think only about our living child.”

I did not dare ask where the body of the other baby was. I did not even dare pronounce the name we had chosen since the eighth month of pregnancy—Niko.

On Tuesday, at half past ten in the morning, the door opened and a nurse entered the room. A little boy lay in her cart, wrapped in a white blanket. A small star embroidered with green thread could be seen in the corner of the blanket. I recognized this star immediately—the blanket had been sewn for me by a neighbor woman who made things for children.

“Our little Luka has come to his mother,” said the nurse.

Mark smiled.

“How strong he is, isn’t he?”

The nurse looked at him, but did not continue smiling. Her name badge read: Judy.

She carefully helped me take the baby, straightened the blanket at his neck, and bent down as if she were saying something into my child’s ear.

“Don’t be afraid,” she told me quietly. “Do not show anything on your face.”

My fingers froze in the baby’s blanket.

Judy smiled at Mark.

“Congratulations, father.”

Then she bent toward me again.

“I sent something to your phone. Look only when you are alone. Do not trust your husband.”

My breath caught.

Mark noticed nothing. He kissed the baby’s forehead and looked at his watch.

“I’ll bring you coffee. The doctor said you should eat at least a little.”

“Mark…” My voice broke. “Where are the documents about Niko?”

His hand stopped on the door handle.

“Nina, why are you starting this now?”

“I just want to know.”

For a moment, his face acquired the same coldness as the hospital’s metal railing.

“Everything will happen later. First you must recover.”

The door closed.

Only the intermittent beeping of the machine and my baby’s weak breathing could be heard in the room. I reached for the phone. One video was waiting from an unknown number. Its duration was twenty-seven seconds.

I pressed my finger on the screen.

In the very first frame, the hospital’s back corridor appeared. Then Mark appeared. He was not alone. He was holding something in his hand and saying to someone: “No one will find out if you do it correctly.”

At the fifth second of the video, my hand shook so much that the phone fell onto the bed.

The sound of footsteps came from beyond the door. Mark was returning.

I looked at the phone, then at Luka, and at exactly that moment the handle slowly lowered…

The door opened, but Mark was not standing on the threshold. It was Judy. She was holding a plastic folder and immediately fixed her eyes on my phone.

“Did you watch the video?”

“Where is Mark?”

“I stopped him at the coffee machine. I cannot hold him for more than two minutes.”

Judy hid the folder in my blanket.

“Those frames are a backup recording from the camera. Mark does not know that I saved it.”

“What did he do?”

Judy bit her lip.

“While you were unconscious, he spoke with Doctor Lasha Vashadze. One baby was born alive.”

The room spun.

“Niko?”

“I did not know the name. But the baby was alive. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Where is he now?”

Judy looked toward the door.

“You will find that in the folder. But the main video does not show everything to the end. There is another recording that my colleague hid. We must get it before Mark realizes that you know.”

Mark’s voice was heard from outside.

“Nina, may I come in?”

Judy moved the baby closer to me and whispered:

“Smile. As if nothing happened.”

I smiled, although everything inside me was screaming.

Mark came in with coffee, kissed my forehead, and sat on the chair.

“Are you better now?”

“Much,” I answered.

Judy headed toward the door.

Mark waved to her.

“Thank you for helping my wife like this.”

Judy nodded, but there was fear in her eyes.

When she left, Mark looked toward my phone.

“Did someone send you something?”

“My mother. She asked for a photo of the baby.”

He smiled at me. This time the smile did not reach his eyes.

Under the folder, I felt the corner of a paper with my fingers. Only one word was written on it: “Transfer.”

At that very moment Judy knocked on the door three times. A small memory card could be seen in her hand…

Judy came in again, as if she had to check the baby’s temperature. Mark was standing by the window and sending Luka’s photo to my mother. Behind his back, Judy quietly placed the memory card in my hand.

“The baby is sleeping,” she said loudly. “The mother needs rest too.”

Mark nodded.

“I’ll leave in five minutes. The doctor is waiting for me.”

As soon as the door closed, Judy opened the folder. Inside were a copy of the birth report, two signatures, and a photo of a small white bracelet. It said on the bracelet: “Boy, twenty-nine weeks, alive.”

My knees were losing strength.

“Is this Niko?”

“The document did not contain a name,” Judy answered me. “But the birth time exactly matches your delivery.”

“I was told that he died at twenty-eight weeks.”

“They lied to you.”

Judy connected the phone to the memory card. The hospital’s underground service corridor appeared on the screen. The camera showed four in the morning. Mark was coming with quick steps. Behind him, Doctor Lasha Vashadze was wheeling a small transparent baby bassinet.

A newborn’s crying was heard in the frame.

I did not recognize my own voice.

“No… no, this cannot be.”

In the video, Mark looked at the bassinet.

“He is alive, right?”

“Yes,” the doctor answered.

“Then record that they could not save him.”

Judy lowered her eyes, but the video continued.

“This is illegal,” the doctor said. “You must pay the promised money.”

Mark handed him a paper bag.

“There will be more money when the baby reaches the private clinic. My wife should be left with only one son. Elene will take the other baby.”

The baby lying on the bed moved as if frightened. I hugged him and felt as if I were touching both children together.

“Who is Elene?” I asked.

Judy answered me:

“Mark’s sister. She is childless. She wanted a baby, and Mark had taken money from her.”

In the video, Mark said one more sentence:

“Nina will not find out anything. When she wakes up, one dead baby and one living one will be enough for her.”

Something inside me finally collapsed. Not only my love for my husband. Also the idea that he had cried together with me in those days.

The door suddenly opened. Mark was standing there.

His eyes first met Judy, then the phone, then my face.

“What are you watching?” he asked.

I no longer hid.

“My child.”

Mark turned pale.

“Nina, you are still weak. Judy, get out of here.”

“Niko was alive,” I told him. “You stole him from me.”

His lips moved, but he could not make a sound.

“Where did you take him?”

Mark took a step back.

“You do not know what you are saying.”

Judy took another sheet from the folder.

“The address of the private clinic is written here. But they called us from there this morning. The baby is no longer there. Mark transferred him somewhere else.”

Mark took out his phone. An unknown number was glowing on the screen. He answered and listened for several seconds.

Then a fear appeared on his face that had not yet been visible in the video.

“What happened?” I asked.

Mark slowly looked at me.

“Elene… went to the police,” he said.

But a woman’s voice sounded once more at the other end of the call, and the phone fell from Mark’s hand. Judy picked it up, brought it to her ear, and immediately lost color.

“Nina,” she said, “the baby was not with Elene at all. The woman says that Mark did not bring Niko to her either. Then where is your child?…”