Her Eyes Or My Baby

My name is Sarah, and I run Whispers & Wishes—a pawn shop on the outskirts of town. We don't deal in ordinary trinkets. Here, people trade tangible things for the deepest, most intangible desires of the heart.

One evening, just as I was about to close up, a customer walked in. A familiar one.

My husband, David.

Hidden behind the velvet curtain, I engaged the voice modulator. "What do you wish to pawn tonight?"

He slid a photograph across the counter and pointed to the woman in the image. "I want her sight restored."

Then he placed my ultrasound picture right beside it.

"I'm pawning the three-month-old fetus my wife is carrying."

My breath caught. The woman in the photo was Amelia—his childhood sweetheart, his brother's recently widowed wife.

I couldn't speak. I just stared.

This baby… the one we tried for three years to conceive… the one we dreamed of holding…

And now he was willing to trade it. For her.

A sharp, cold pain pierced through my chest.

David grew impatient at my silence. "Well? Isn't it enough?"

He drummed his fingers on the glass, frustration tightening his voice.

"Fine. I'll add my wife's memories of me. All of them. Is that sufficient now?"

I felt my world tilt. A dull, heavy ache spread inside me.

Tears threatened, but I forced the words out. "You'd really give up our child… and every memory I have of you… for another woman?"

"Yes," he said, voice flat. "I have no choice. And she… she would understand. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to her."

Each word was a knife twisting deeper.

Seeing my hesitation, he pressed on. "I know how this works. She'd give everything for me, too."

My hands trembled. I was clutching the ultrasound so hard my knuckles turned white.

Suddenly, it all made sense—his recent distance, his coldness whenever I brought up the baby. Those questions he'd ask… Would you really do anything for me, Sarah?

I thought he was testing my love. I said yes—every time, without a second thought.

Now I knew. It was all a setup.

"What's the matter?" David snapped. "Having second thoughts? Or is that famous power of yours just a lie?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, voice raw. "No. I'll do it."

"But I have to ask one last time. Once this is done, there's no going back. Are you sure?"

He didn't even pause. "Anything to see her eyes open again."

The air left my lungs. I could barely breathe.