Chapter 2 - The Shocking Question That Erased Their Smiles
Victor paused with his hand hovering over his smartphone, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked up at me.
“Remember what, Penelope?” he asked, his tone dripping with condescending impatience.
“Remember that life has a strange way of balancing the books when you least expect it,” I said softly.
Without waiting for his reply, I turned on my heel and walked out of the glass-walled conference room.
I didn't look back at my former sister-in-law Samantha, nor did I acknowledge the mediator who was watching the scene with deep sympathy.
I took the elevator down to the underground parking garage, where my modest silver sedan was parked in the corner.
My daughters, twelve-year-old Abigail and seven-year-old Charlotte, were waiting for me at my sister’s house just ten minutes away.
Their passports were already tucked safely inside my leather handbag, along with three one-way first-class tickets to London.
For the past three months, while Victor was busy buying designer baby clothes for Naomi’s unborn child, I had been quietly liquidating my grandmothers' inheritance.
I had sold my private art collection, closed my domestic accounts, and secured a executive consultancy role at a global firm based in the United Kingdom.
Victor thought he was abandoning a helpless, heartbroken housewife who would spend years weeping over his family’s grand fortune.
He had no idea that while he was rushing off to his mistress’s ultrasound appointment, I was driving straight to Dulles International Airport.
Meanwhile, across town at the premier women’s health clinic in downtown Bethesda, the entire Reynolds family was gathering in the private waiting suite.
Victor arrived carrying a massive bouquet of yellow roses, his father Walter slapping him proudly on the back as he walked through the door.
Miriam was already sitting beside Naomi Prescott, holding the younger woman’s hand like she was royalty personified.
“Our little grandson is going to have the finest doctors in Maryland,” Miriam declared loudly to the attending nurses.
Naomi beamed with triumphant satisfaction, smoothing down her designer maternity dress over her four-month baby bump.
The door to the examination room opened, and Dr. Harrison, a veteran obstetrician with thirty years of experience, stepped inside.
“Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds? We’re ready for your high-definition ultrasound scan,” Dr. Harrison announced with a polite smile.
The entire clan—Victor, his parents, and his sister Samantha—piled into the room like an invading army.
Naomi laid back on the padded examination table while the technician applied the cold gel across her stomach.
The room was dimmed, and the large wall-mounted monitor flickered to life, showing the black-and-white grainy image of the developing fetus.
Victor’s heart swelled with arrogant pride as he pointed toward the screen.
“Look at that,” Victor boasted, turning to his father. “There’s the boy who’s going to take over Reynolds Engineering.”
Dr. Harrison adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses, hovering the ultrasound transducer probe over Naomi’s lower abdomen.
He zoomed in on the fetal development measurements, his smiling expression slowly freezing into a look of sharp, professional confusion.
The doctor tapped the keyboard, pulling up the medical chart history on the secondary monitor beside him.
He checked the recorded date of conception, then looked at the fetal head circumference and bone length measurements on the screen.
He re-checked the numbers twice, three times, his brows furrowing deeper with every passing second of dead silence.
The joyous chatter in the room gradually died down as everyone noticed the doctor’s sudden, cold shift in demeanor.
“Doctor?” Naomi asked, her voice tight with a subtle edge of rising anxiety. “Is something wrong with my baby boy?”
Dr. Harrison turned slowly in his rolling chair, looking directly at Victor, then at Naomi, and finally at Walter and Miriam.
“The baby’s heart rate and development are perfectly healthy,” Dr. Harrison began carefully.
“However, based on these precise biometric measurements, this fetus is currently twenty-two weeks and four days along.”
Victor frowned, shaking his head with a light, confused chuckle. “No, Doctor, that’s incorrect. Naomi is only sixteen weeks pregnant.”
“We started our relationship in late May.”
Dr. Harrison set the probe down in its holder and wiped his hands on a paper towel, his voice completely devoid of warmth.
“Mr. Reynolds, ultrasound biometrics at this stage do not lie by six full weeks.”
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