an ultimatum

Tom lay still for a long moment, processing what she'd said. Then he shifted, propping himself up on one elbow to look at her directly. In the darkness, he could barely make out her features, but he could hear the anxiety in her breathing, the careful way she was waiting for his response.

"Have you already made your choice?" he asked quietly.

Tasha didn't answer immediately. Her hand moved to her belly, and he felt the baby shift under her palm. When she finally spoke, her voice was thick with emotion.

"I don't know," she said. "That's the honest answer. Sarah and I are arguing about it constantly now. Sarah wants to go back to you, to the life we built, to the woman she was. But she also knows that going back means losing all of this—losing Christine, losing the baby, losing the pregnancy and birth and motherhood. And she doesn't know if she can survive that loss."

She paused. "And Tasha? Tasha is terrified of Sarah disappearing, because she knows that without Sarah's consciousness there to balance her, she might just fully commit to Christine and the baby and forget that any of this was ever about the coin. She might forget Tom entirely. And the Sarah part of her doesn't want that either, because she loves you and she knows you deserve to have a choice in what happens."

Tom closed his eyes. "So you're saying you don't know."

"I'm saying we're both being torn apart," Tasha said. "Every day, both of us want different things. Some days Sarah is dominant and she wants to come home to you. Other days Tasha is so present that she forgets Sarah exists. And most days we're just screaming at each other inside this one body, trying to figure out what the right choice is."

Tom was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "If you've decided to stay as Tasha, if Sarah is going to fade completely and you're going to choose to remain with Christine and the baby—I need you to tell me now. Because I can't keep doing this if that's where this ends."

Tasha's breath caught. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," Tom said carefully, "that I love Sarah. And I'm not going to erase her, even if you're asking me to. I won't negate the anchor wish. I won't **** you to come back. But I also can't be the man who continues a secret affair with a married woman while her wife is blissfully unaware. I can't be the man who sabotages your relationship with Christine for my own sake."

He took a breath. "Right now, this works because it exists in this liminal space. It's a wish-created scenario. You came back to check on the poor widower. Your visits have a function, a reason. But if Sarah disappears and you choose to stay as Tasha—then this becomes something else entirely. It becomes me deliberately, knowingly, with full awareness that I'm destroying a good woman's life and a new family's chance at happiness."

His voice cracked slightly. "I'm selfish, and I've proven that by having this affair with you while you're pregnant with your wife's child. But I'm not that selfish. I won't do that to Christine. I won't do that to the baby. And I can't keep seeing you if that's the reality we're heading toward."

Tasha was crying now, silently, tears running down her cheeks into her hair.

"So here's what needs to happen," Tom continued. "You need to make a choice. A real choice. Not 'I don't know.' Not 'both of us are arguing about it.' You need to sit with yourself—both of yourselves—and you need to decide. Do you want to come back to being Sarah? Do you want to return to your original body, your original life, your marriage to me? Or do you want to stay as Tasha, and if so, do you understand what that means? It means I'm going to step back. It means these visits stop. It means you go on with your life with Christine and your baby, and I grieve the wife I lost to a magic coin."

He swallowed hard. "Because I can survive losing you to the transformation. I can survive knowing that Sarah chose to stay gone. That's the consequence of the wish I made. But I can't survive becoming the man who knowingly destroys Christine's family while lying to himself that it's okay because it's technically temporary."

"Tom—" Tasha started.

"Let me finish," he said gently. "I'm not asking you to choose right now. You're three weeks away from giving birth. Your body is in upheaval, your emotions are in upheaval, both of you are in upheaval. But I need you to know that the clock is running. The baby is coming. And when the baby comes, things are going to shift again. The reality of motherhood, of holding your child, of Christine watching you with your son—it's all going to make this clearer. So after you give birth, after you've had a week or two to recover and settle into new motherhood, then I need you to make a choice."

He reached over and took her hand, placing it on his chest so she could feel his heartbeat. "If you choose to come back, I will be here. I will love you through the grief of losing the pregnancy, losing Christine, losing the baby that Tasha carries. We will work through what this has done to us, and we will try to rebuild our marriage. And it will be hard and messy and complicated, but I will be here."

He paused. "But if you choose to stay, if Sarah fades completely and you decide that being Tasha with Christine is what you want—then I need you to go. Fully. You don't come here. You don't visit the 'poor widower' anymore. You live your life, and I'll try to live mine. And I'll honor that choice, even though it will destroy me."

Tasha was sobbing quietly now, her whole body shaking with the effort of trying to contain it.

"Why are you saying this now?" she whispered. "Why are you asking me to choose when I'm about to give birth?"

"Because you need to know what the stakes are," Tom said. "You need to understand that this isn't a fantasy that can continue indefinitely. This isn't a story that gets to just keep going because it's compelling. There's going to be an ending, and it's going to be soon. And I love you—both of you—too much to let either of you think that I'll just accept whatever happens without question."

He pulled her close, cradling her belly, his chin resting on her shoulder. "So make your choice. After the baby comes. When you're thinking clearly and you're not flooded with pregnancy hormones. Make your choice and tell me. And whatever you decide, I will accept it. But I won't compromise on this—if Sarah is gone and you're truly Tasha now, then we have to let each other go."

Tasha turned in his arms, awkward with her belly, and buried her face in his neck. They held each other in the darkness, and Tom felt her tears soak into his skin. She didn't say she would choose him. She didn't say she would choose to come back. She just held on, and cried, and let him hold her while the weight of impossible choices pressed down on both of them.

Outside, the June night was warm and heavy with the promise of summer. In three weeks, the baby would come. In three weeks, everything would change again. And Tom would have his answer—whether his wife would choose to return to him, or whether she would vanish entirely into the life of a woman named Tasha Rivers, leaving him alone with a magic coin and the memory of someone who used to be his.

He kissed the top of her head and held her as she trembled, both of them knowing that this tender moment existed in the space between two possible futures, and that very soon, one of those futures would become inevitable.