Chapter 2

The following morning, an OB-GYN geneticist came to my room to record the medical history and screen for causes of the miscarriage.

Hearing that it had been triggered by a minor car fender-bender, the doctor frowned thoughtfully.

"Medically speaking, the physical trauma from the impact shouldn't have been severe enough to cause a complete detachment."

"It could very well point to an underlying embryonic chromosomal issue or poor sperm quality."

The doctor looked up toward Dylan. "Is there any history of genetic disorders on the paternal side?"

Dylan hesitated, his eyes darting toward me nervously before looking down at the floor. "If... if the biological father turns out to be someone else, does that person need to be tested directly?"

The doctor froze, looking back and forth between Dylan and me, completely at a loss for words.

The room fell into a suffocating, humiliating silence.

A surge of blind fury rushed through my veins.

Grabbing the heavy medical binder from the bedside tray, I hurled it straight at Dylan's face.

Papers scattered across the floor in a chaotic storm.

"The baby is already dead!" I screamed, my voice cracking. "What more do you want?!"

Dylan's face turned paper-white. "I just want to know who fathered the child, Nora!"

"You've already convinced yourself it wasn't you! Why are you still obsessed with this?!"

"Because it matters! You carried that child!" Dylan suddenly snapped, his hands clenching into tight fists, veins bulging along his forearms.

Sensing the volatile atmosphere, the doctor quickly scooped up his clipboards and slipped out the door.

Dylan bent down, gathered the scattered papers, and set them out of my reach.

"Nora, I just need closure. It matters to me."

"Please, stop making a scene."

I stared at the red scrape on the back of his hand from the binder, feeling a wave of sheer, bitter absurdity wash over me.

That afternoon, Victoria texted Dylan what she claimed was the "full clinical explanation." Yet it was still just a data summary.

The numbers remained unchanged.

Holding the phone, Dylan looked at me, as if waiting for a confession.

I looked at him coolly. "Didn't you say you were going to pick up the official physical report yourself?"

"The genetic counselor is out of the office until next week. Victoria forwarded the digital documentation directly from the system."

"You believe every single word that comes out of her mouth, don't you?"

"She's been working in genetic testing for eight years, Nora."

"I'm your wife!"

I stared right into his eyes. "Just because she works in a lab, when she implies I'm a cheat, you take it as gospel?"

"She never said you cheated."

"Then what exactly are you investigating right now?"

He looked away, pulling up my earliest ultrasound report on his screen. "It says right here: seven weeks gestational age. Nora, seven weeks ago, I was out of state on a business trip."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Do you honestly think being seven weeks pregnant means the baby was conceived exactly seven weeks ago?"

"Isn't that how it works?"

"Gestational age is calculated from the first day of my last menstrual period, not the exact day we had sex!"

"Victoria said ultrasound dating can have discrepancies."

He scrolled back to a digital calendar from two months prior. "Fine, then tell me. Which specific day was I home? Which night was I on call at the hospital? Which days was I traveling?"

"Are you interrogating me like a criminal now?"

"I'm just trying to make the dates make sense!"

"And what happens after you calculate it all?" I snapped, my chest heaving. "You've already tried and convicted me in your head. Do these details even matter to you?"

I reached over, snatched his phone, and locked the screen. "You know my exact routine down to the minute. You know when I leave for school and when I get home. And now you expect me to provide a minute-by-minute log of my life to prove I didn't sleep with someone else?"

"Then explain to me how you got pregnant after I had a vasectomy!" Dylan's voice cracked with desperation. "I've had post-op semen tests over the years, and every single one showed azoospermia! Zero sperm!"

Our raised voices echoed down the hall.

A floor nurse pushed the door open, looking stern. "Folks, this is an inpatient ward. Please keep your voices down."

Dylan fell silent for a few moments, pocketed his phone, and looked at me tiredly.

"If you don't want to talk about it, fine. Let's just wait for the DNA results."

To preserve whatever scrap of dignity we had left, we buried the topic once more.

Perhaps the emotional toll had finally caught up to my weakened body, but by midnight, I spiked a high fever.

"Her emotional distress is severely hindering her recovery," the night nurse told Dylan as she adjusted my IV. "There's early signs of an infection. She needs care and quiet."

Dylan's eyes instantly filled with tears of panic.

He didn't sleep a wink that night, tending to me constantly.

Hazy with fever, I instinctively leaned my head against his chest.

This was the chest I had rested on for ten years.

When he was an underpaid resident, he handed me full control of our joint finances without hesitation. When we tried for a baby years ago before deciding to be childfree, he shielded me entirely from his mother's relentless pressure.

I used to believe with every fiber of my being that even if the entire world turned against me, Dylan would stand firmly by my side.

Yet as I leaned against his heartbeat, I heard him quietly whisper into his phone.

"She claims gestational age should be adjusted back two weeks from conception..."

Victoria's voice came through the speaker, crisp and cold: Ultrasounds have margins of error, Dylan. She can say whatever she wants right now. Just wait for the paternity and chromosomal verification.

Every trace of warmth drained from my body. I was wide awake.

I sat up, pulling away from his embrace. He reached out to feel my forehead.

"Still shivering?"

"No."

"Try to get some more sleep then."

I turned onto my side, facing the blank wall.

When I was discharged the next morning, Dylan gently wrapped my woolen scarf around my neck. On the Uber ride home, he held my hand tightly.

I stared out the window at the passing city streets.

I didn't pull my hand away.

Nor did I squeeze back.