Chapter 4 — The Suitcase

The night everything shattered, Alex left a folder on the kitchen island.

It was filled with brochures for international surrogacy clinics, price breakdowns, rigid timelines, a whole future planned around replacing his wife’s body with a stranger’s.

“Do you want a child,” Elena had asked him, her voice trembling, “or do you want to stay married to me?” “I want both,” he had said.

“And what if I can’t give you children?” And to that question, the only one that truly mattered, Alex had said nothing at all.