When I finally pulled into the driveway of my matrimonial home, the house was pitch black. No porch light. No smell of dinner. The warmth had been completely excised from the place, leaving behind a hollow, concrete shell.
I burst through the front door, shouting her name. “Lucy! Lucy!”
Only my own echo answered.
I ran up the stairs to our master bedroom. Her closet was completely empty. Not a single hanger remained. Even the faint scent of her lavender soap was gone, replaced by the sterile smell of wood polish. She hadn’t just left; she had erased herself.
I flew to my mahogany study desk. My hands scrambled through the drawers until they hit a thick, heavy manila envelope. On the front, written in Lucy’s elegant, precise cursive, were two words: The Bill.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I tore the envelope open.
Inside was a stack of medical documents, corporate bank statements, and a legal non-disclosure agreement dated five years ago. My eyes scanned the top medical document first. It was a fertility report from the Centro de Fertilidad de Guadalajara. It wasn’t Lucy’s report. It was mine.
I read the words, but my brain refused to process them.
Patient: Raymond Mendez
Diagnosis: Severe Azoospermia due to childhood mumps complication.
Prognosis: Absolute and irreversible sterility. Count: 0%.
The date on the paper was from the second year of our marriage.
I fell back into the office chair, the air completely leaving my lungs for the second time that night. I was sterile. I had always been sterile.
