I bought her designer clothes she would never wear.

Expensive vitamins.

Luxury face creams.

I transferred money directly into her bank account, again and again.

She almost always protested.

“Save it for the baby,” she would say, pushing the gifts gently back toward me.

And I mistook her selflessness for simple maternal gratitude — for a mother happy to be needed.

I understand now what I was really doing, and it shames me.