Patient: Raymond Mendez. Diagnosis: Severe Azoospermia (Zero sperm count due to congenital genetic block). Prognosis: Permanent, irreversible sterility. Patient cannot biologically father children.
The paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the hardwood floor.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t process it. Three years ago? I had never gone to a fertility clinic three years ago. Lucy had gone alone to her appointments, or so I thought. She had taken the blame. She had absorbed my insults, my sneers, my public declarations that she was failing me as a wife. She had protected my fragile, arrogant male ego by letting me believe she was the problem.
But if I was permanently, irreversibly sterile… then how was Lucy pregnant now?
Before the horrific implications of that thought could fully take root, my phone rang. The caller ID displayed David’s name.
The rage that surged through me was primal. I answered it, my voice a demonic rasp. “You son of a bitch.”
There was a long pause on the other end. When David spoke, his voice lacked its usual arrogant, boardroom confidence. He sounded hollow. Depleted.
“Ray,” David said quietly. “I see you’ve met the baby.
