A woman receives the shock of her life when she helps deliver her neighbor’s baby only to realize that her husband fathered the child.
Jane Hill had been friends with Leslie Burgess for more than six years. Leslie and her husband, Lenny, had moved into their home next door just a couple of days after Jane and her hubby, Tom, settled in.
Both couples had just tied the knot at the time, and they bonded over the coincidence, quickly falling into an easy friendship.
Almost two years into that friendship, Jane realized that the Burgesses seemed to be having trouble in paradise. Lenny seemed to derive pleasure in making his wife’s life a living hell. He seemed to be very jealous and protective of her despite all that.
It was a confusing dynamic, but Jane’s heart went out Leslie, who, contrary to her husband’s suspicions, was very faithful — or so Jane thought.
As time passed, the situation of things between the couple degenerated drastically to the point where Jane and the other neighbors could hear their screams.
The pair stopped going out together at some point while the fights grew more raucous. Soon, Jane started noticing how close to tears Leslie always was.
The difference was quite noticeable because in the past, Leslie had been quite pleasant and polite to Jane, but it seemed the man she had married deliberately wanted to isolate his wife from others.
Jane kept overlooking those things until the day she met Lenny at the town supermarket and decided to take that chance to talk to him. “Lenny,” she called as she walked up to the tall man.
“Hi Jane,” he said before returning to browsing the hardware section.
“I know it doesn’t concern me but I don’t like to see you and your wife so unhappy. Have you guys considered couple’s counseling? Leslie loves you so much…”
Jane was cut off by the look he gave her, and she heard herself swallow a couple of times as the silence was drawn out. Eventually, he spoke.
“Listen, Jane, I understand why you feel the need to defend Leslie but if I were you I wouldn’t do that. You think she’s your friend, but in truth, she is not a good friend.” And with that, he turned his back and walked away without a backward glance.
Some three weeks later, Lenny moved out of the house he shared with Leslie, and when Jane heard her friend was three months pregnant at the time, she was horrified.
“But Leslie, are you sure you told him?” Jane asked, stunned.
Her friend just kept crying rather than answering. Then after some time, she said, “I told him, Jane, but he insists it isn’t his and that I’d been unfaithful! Oh Jane, this is my worst fear, I can’t have this baby on my own. I can’t!”
Jane felt broken by her friend’s misfortune, so she promised not to let the woman go through it alone.
“You won’t be! I promise you, my husband and I will support you every step of the way!” Jane said, throwing her arms around her friend, who sobbed with gratitude.
That evening, Jane told Tom what was happening with the other family. “I took the liberty of letting her know that we’d be there to help her through her pregnancy.”
Tom did not look happy about that, and he said as much. “Truth be told honey, I wish you wouldn’t act so impulsively! That’s a huge responsibility, and I don’t even know that woman all that well, why should I do that for her?”
“They’ve been our neighbors for six years, Tom!” Jane exclaimed. “She’s my best friend and I thought you were getting along with her!”
“Not particularly,” he said. “She’s cool, I guess, but it has always been your thing to be her friend, I’m perfectly fine not knowing her.”
“Oh Tom,” Jane said tenderly, enveloping him with her arms and kissing him full on the mouth. “Please be nice to the poor woman,” she said. “We are all she has!”
When he seemed like he wasn’t listening, she cunningly traced kisses down the side of his neck to a sensitive area he referred to as his ‘lucky bump.’
“You fox,” he growled. “You know how to have your way with me!” Jane giggled at that then gave his ‘lucky bump,’ which was essentially a birthmark, a teasing bite.
“Your mom told me it was your father’s only weakness and that you were likely to have it too. I’m only taking full advantage!” The rest of that evening ended in sweet love-making, and Tom agreed to help Leslie as much as he could.
True to her words, Jane joined Leslie on all her trips to the hospital — she even followed her to see the nutritionist and joined her to attend Lamaze classes.
They got closer over those months, to the extent that they took a natural childbirth course that taught them how to usher the child into the world without medical intervention.
“Not like I plan to deliver this child outside the four walls of a hospital!” Leslie said. “But there is no harm in being prepared!” She was absolutely right because Jane got a call from a gasping Leslie one afternoon.
“Jane, I — it’s time!” she cried.
Leslie ran over immediately but was stunned to see her friend surrounded by a pool of liquid. “Your water broke!” Jane cried. “I’ll call the hospital.”
Because of how far their place was from the local hospital, the hospital asked that Jane make Leslie as comfortable as possible — it would be a while before the ambulance arrived.
As they had been taught in the joint classes she shared with Leslie, Jane started timing her contractions and realized they were getting closer and closer together.
On a whim, she took a look, and to her horror, the baby’s head was crowning! “Leslie!” she cried. “The baby’s here!”
“That can’t be!” Leslie screamed, clutching at Jane. “It’s not supposed to be due for hours yet!”
“Hardly matters now,” Jane said. “He’s already on his way!”
That said, the woman quickly dashed around the house, gathering things, including hot water, a warm blanket, scissors, and a cord. Then she knelt by her friend and urged her to push with all her might.
It was a few minutes of screaming, then there was silence for a moment, and after, a baby’s cry was heard.
She tenderly held it, then laid it on the soft blanket while tied off and severed the umbilical cord as they were taught at the natural childbirth class.
After that was done, Jane picked up the child and revealed it was a boy to the tired Leslie.
“A beautiful baby boy!” Jane said, wiping the baby down gently, after which she discovered something unusual about the child.
There was a small, soft lump that felt familiar on one side of his neck. It felt … almost … like… a ‘lucky bump!’ Jane looked down at the child, and immediately things started falling into place. What Lenny had told her at the store that day.
“Lenny…” she whispered with shaky hands, still unable to stop looking at the child and rubbing that lump. “Lenny had been right. You were never my friend and you’ve been having an affair but with my husband?”
Jane heard a sharp intake of breath as Leslie tried to sit up. “Oh, Jane, I’d never…”
“Don’t lie to me, the proof is right here!” Jane said, gesturing at the baby in her hands.
“Please don’t hurt him!” screamed Leslie. “Yes, he’s your husband’s. We’ve been sneaking around for a few years, I’ll tell you whatever you want, but please leave him out of this!”
“I would never do that to your baby, Leslie,” Jane said. “I’m not evil like you. I don’t ruin other people’s lives.” Gently, Jane put the baby in Leslie’s arms and left her to wait for the ambulance alone.
That night, Tom arrived home to find the house devoid of his wife and her things. Jane left him without speaking a word to him, even all through the divorce.
It took Jane years to get past her distrust for people after that, after which she met a wonderful man and remarried. Now she is a happy woman, and she is expecting her second child with her husband.
