At the beginning, we visited her together. We brought vitamins, groceries, anything she might need, and I spent an unreasonable amount of time picking out things like maternity pillows because I wanted to feel involved, like I had a place in all of this.
But then Arthur started going alone.
At first, it sounded reasonable.
“She might be running low on supplements,” he would say casually, already grabbing his keys. “I’ll just stop by quickly.”
Then it became more frequent.
Middle of the day.
Late at night.
Weekends.
Whenever he felt like it.
One afternoon, I reached for my coat and said, “Wait, I’ll come with you.”
Arthur paused at the door, just for a second, before shaking his head. “You don’t need to.”
The way he said it didn’t sound like a suggestion.
It sounded like a boundary.
And that was the moment something inside me started to break.
He still came back with updates, as if that was enough to keep me included. “She’s craving citrus,” he’d say, or “The baby moved today,” and I would nod, smile, pretend to be part of something that increasingly felt like it no longer belonged to me.
Meanwhile, his obsession with documentation grew worse.
Receipts, medical reports, ultrasound images—everything was carefully organized, labeled, preserved.
“What do you need all of that for?” I asked one night.
“Just being thorough,” he replied, without looking up.
It didn’t feel like “thorough.”
It felt like preparation.
The question I had been holding in finally slipped out one evening. “Arthur… don’t you think you’re visiting her a little too often?”
He looked at me like I had just said something ridiculous. “She’s carrying our child. I want to make sure everything goes smoothly.”
I smiled.
I let it go.
But the feeling didn’t leave.
The next morning, I did something I never thought I would do.
As Arthur put on his coat, I slipped a small recording device into the inner pocket, my hands shaking as I did it. For a moment, I almost pulled it back out, but something deeper, something instinctive, told me not to.
That night, after he came home and went to bed, I locked myself in the bathroom, sat on the cold floor, and pressed play.
At first, it sounded normal.
The door opening.
Celine’s voice, warm and familiar. “You’re here.”
Arthur answering calmly. “I brought the supplements.”
I exhaled slowly, almost relieved.
Maybe I had imagined everything.
Maybe I was just scared.
Then Celine asked, hesitantly, “Are you sure your wife is okay with all of this?”
Arthur didn’t hesitate.
“She doesn’t even want the baby,” he said.
The world didn’t stop in that moment.
It didn’t shatter dramatically.
It just… went quiet.
“She only agreed because I pushed for it,” he continued. “Once the baby is born, she’ll sign over her rights.”
Celine’s voice faltered. “But… she comes with you sometimes.”
“That’s just for appearances,” Arthur replied. “I’ve been keeping records—everything. If she changes her mind, I’ll prove she was never emotionally involved. I’ll take full custody.”
I didn’t realize I had covered my mouth until I felt my own breath against my palm.
By the time the recording ended, I understood everything—why he visited so often, why he documented every detail, why he kept me at a distance.
He wasn’t preparing for fatherhood.
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