I sat in the backyard of my parents home watching my little sister, Jane, open presents. She smiled and held up the onesie. I smiled and turned towards my wife, Emily, who looked at me and gave me a half-hearted smile back.

We had been married for five years, trying for a baby for three. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted.” she told me on our first date. But after 2 years of trying- and failing- for a baby, we finally went to see a doctor.

It was me. “Slow swimmers”, some call it. I remember how devastated I felt. I let her down, took away the one thing she wanted most in life.

I could feel her resentment towards me grow.

Dishes began to break after arguments. Insults hurled at me. “In sickness and health” I would tell myself, trying to stay and work through IVF with her, although that seemed to fail too.

Her words snapped me out of my daydream.

“I have to use the restroom” she said quietly to me as she got up. I saw tears glistening in her eyes and felt guilt for bringing her to my sisters gender reveal, but she assured me it was okay when we got the invitation.

A few minutes went by and I became bored, so I wandered inside to find food.

I stopped inside to talk with my brother-in-law for a bit and then went back outside. Not seeing Jane or Emily, I wandered back inside, thinking maybe I hadn’t seen them enter.

I walked around until I was upstairs by the bathroom, when I started hearing a soft cry that sounded like Emily’s. I asked if she was in there. She didn’t answer. 

I began to become more worried when I remembered the key my parents hid when I was young. My hand ran across the top of the door frame until I felt it.

I slid the key into the lock and opened the door. I wish I hadn’t.

The bathtub held my sisters body, stained a deep red. It dripped off her fingers into a puddle on the floor. Her mouth was gagged and her arm reached out to the doorway, eyes opened. I could see the agony and horror etched onto her face.

Her other arm was down on her belly where the baby had lived and grown for seven months. She was cut, down the middle. Empty.

And Emily.

She was pale and shaking, covered in blood. She held a needle and thread. She looked to the door where she saw me. Face soaked in tears. She had deep gashes down her face. Like claws.

As she saw me, she smiled and looked down at her stomach, now larger than before, skin pulled tight, unnatural, cut in-half. She winced as the needle and thread pulled through skin, humming a lullaby through wracking sobs and moans.

When she was done, she looked up at me, smiled, and said:

“It’s a boy.”