A married couple is split apart when one midnight they both hear a kid crying somewhere in their home — the man wanted to kick the child out, but the woman refused.
Oliver Robinson had been a husband for ten years but had, for some reason, not been able to father a child with his wife, Mary. Anyone could have told them that it had to do with their stunted sex life and busy lives, but it was something they had to figure out from a doctor.
“When last did you spend a full weekend at home Oliver?” Dr. Ben Ross asked him after a check-up.
“Um, I did spend a whole Saturday there last month,” Oliver said.
“How about this month?” the doctor pushed.
“He can’t answer that because he has mostly been away!” Mary cut in with a harsh tone.
“Mary!” Oliver yelled. “You know all I do is for us. For our coming kids.”
“That won’t happen until you spend enough nights at home Oliver,” the elderly doctor cut in to end their bickering before it became unstoppable. The old man had been appointed their family doctor after their marriage, but he had known Mary since she was a young child.
He had always warned them both about how hampered they were by the constant stress of modern life but Oliver was too intensely focused on his thriving business. He was one of those men who believed gifts were a worthy substitute for their presence.
“Why don’t you guys live outside the city for some time? The air is clean and you guys can easily relax there as well. It will be good for you,” Dr. Ross suggested.
“You know, perhaps that’s what we’ll do. I can take some days off and Mary here also owns her brand so she can take a break as well. Thank you doc.”
Oliver was truly enthused about the whole idea of having a change of environment, and the emotion quickly spread to Mary so that they both started making plans of moving.
“I’ll finally have him to myself,” Mary told her friend Jennifer on FaceTime when she called. “We can get a garden and a small farm and I can get started on that gardening blog I always dreamed of starting,” Mary continued.
They quickly found a suitable house that came with enough backyard space for the farm and garden. It was also within their budget, so they signed the deal.
Oliver and Mary loved the place and enjoyed spending time on the farm. The first few days were bliss, and they spent most of it in bed rediscovering their passion for one another.
However, despite all that, there was no conception. After a month, Oliver started going to work again, and this time he disappeared for days, leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening on days when he chose to sleep at home.
When Mary confronted him about it, he defended himself by saying that he was working on an important contract that could skyrocket their potential spending ability.
She couldn’t argue with that, but she also could not get used to sitting alone in their country home listening to the creaks of footsteps on the staircases and the howling of the wind on a stormy day.
The steps became a constant thing, but Mary just attributed them to her paranoia and fear of being alone in the big house.
One night, the first that month, her husband was sitting next to her in bed. Mary heard the creaks again and pointed it out to her husband, who just dismissed it as the draft.
“Have you been watching horror movies again?” he asked her.
“Not at all honey, I wouldn’t dare do that here, not with me practically living here alone now,” she said in a cutting voice.
Oliver sighed before he replied. “We’ve talked about this Mary,” he said, effectively ending the argument before it even began.
In the silence that hung between the two, a cry rang out, startling them. “Did you hear that?” Mary asked Oliver, who nodded.
They waited a few moments, after which they heard the cry again, and it pushed them into action. They both seized flashlights and, while holding hands, sought out the source of the crying.
They traced it to the attic, but Oliver refused to go up there, so Mary went instead. Inside, she discovered a little girl crying in a dark corner, and after recovering from her fright, she approached the girl.
“Hello? What is your name?” she called, but the girl just kept crying.
Mary kept moving slowly towards her, hoping against all hope that she was not in some nasty horror movie. When she was a few steps away from the girl, the crying ceased, and the girl looked up at her with the brightest blue eyes Mary had ever seen.
She quickly set to reassure her, and after talking with the girl, she discovered that she was the daughter of the previous owner of the house who still lived in the neighborhood.
The girl had made their attic her hiding place because she knew how to get in by climbing the tree beside it. She would often hide there when she got into an argument with her father — usually over not getting something she truly desired.
When Mary went down with the girl, Oliver was shocked, but that shock was quickly masked with anger, blaming Mary for coddling the strange child.
“She is probably a thief who got stuck in the house and had no way out!” Oliver said. “Kick her out now!”
“I will do no such thing Oliver, this is a kid we are talking about, not some stray cat!” Mary yelled. Oliver was so furious she would not kick the girl out, so he packed his things and returned to their city apartment that night.
The following morning, Mary took the girl to her father. On her way back, she received a message from Oliver. In it, he confessed to cheating on her and requested a divorce because he wanted to be with a woman who could bear him children.
From then on, he took over their city apartment and invited another woman in to replace Mary. It was tough for Mary, but the little favor she did for the young girl paid her back in ways she couldn’t imagine.
It turned out that the girl’s father was a virile young man just a few years older than her, and they hit it off the very first time they spoke.
He helped her grieve her relationship with Oliver, and they soon started dating and later married, after which Mary adopted his girl. They moved to another state to raise their family and a few months later, Mary got pregnant with a son, and after nine months, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
Meanwhile, Oliver’s mistress gave him hell for not being able to father a child with her. Eventually, she left him for that same reason, and he was left feeling alone and regretting his past actions towards Mary.
He hoped she would still be at the country house waiting for him, so he went in search of her, but she was gone, and instead of the house, he found only a construction site. The workers told him someone bought the house and was in the process of demolishing it to build a new one.
In desperation, Oliver asked the neighbors if they knew about his ex-wife’s whereabouts but most didn’t know. They could only tell him that her life had progressed after their divorce, and she had taken off.