Chapter 4

A few days later came the day of my follow-up exam, six months after my car accident.

I only meant to grab the results and leave.

After looking through the X-rays and my old records, the doctor suddenly asked me, "Mr. Matthews, why are you so certain you've permanently lost your fertility?"

I froze for a moment.

"What do you mean?"

"You suffered only a severe injury at the time, and the odds of recovery weren't high, but there was never any conclusion that you'd be permanently infertile. Your discharge record says it clearly—come back in six months for a follow-up to reassess how you've recovered."

He turned the screen toward me.

The latest results showed every indicator improving.

The doctor even smiled a little. "Given how things look now, natural conception isn't out of the question."

I stared at those few lines, my ears ringing.

"But I have a diagnosis."

I pulled up the photo on my phone.

The third day after I woke from the accident, Clementine had handed it to me herself.

Permanent damage to reproductive function, with no possibility of natural conception.

The doctor took one glance and his brow furrowed.

"This isn't our hospital's official format, and this conclusion doesn't match your original records from back then."

I sat there and didn't say anything for a long time.

Six months.

Because of that one piece of paper, I hadn't dared talk about the future.

An offhand remark from someone—"when you have kids someday"—could keep me lying awake till dawn.

At my worst, I drank until my stomach bled.

Clementine sat at my bedside and scolded me: "Lewis, can't you pull yourself together? So what if you can't have kids? I don't hold it against you."

Back then I still thought she was saving me.

Only now do I understand that she knew perfectly well I might not have lost everything, yet she watched me slowly sentence myself to death anyway.

I took the follow-up report home.

Clementine was in the kitchen making soup.

Hearing the door, she poked her head out. "Perfect timing—come taste this, see if it's too bland."

I set the report on the dining table.

When she made out the words on it, the smile vanished from her face.

I asked, "That diagnosis—where did it come from?"

Clementine didn't answer.

I asked again. "I was never actually diagnosed as permanently infertile. Why did you lie to me?"

She was silent a long time before she said quietly, "You went for the follow-up?"

That one sentence was enough.

I looked at her. "You knew all along."

Clementine came over at once.

"Lewis, let me explain first. The doctor said the chances of recovery were very low, and you kept clinging to that sliver of possibility—happy one minute, falling apart the next. I really couldn't stand seeing you like that."

"So?"

She bit her lip.

"That report—Ferris had someone make it."

Ferris again.

My grip on the report tightened, little by little.

Clementine rushed to explain. "We weren't trying to hurt you. Ferris said, rather than letting you wait forever for a result that might never come, it was better to accept the worst first. And if you really did recover later, we'd tell you—wouldn't that be a good thing too?"

I stared at her for a long time.

"So the two of you decided for me when I should despair and when I should be happy?"

Her eyes reddened at once.

"I just wanted you to stop tormenting yourself."

"Then when I drank until my stomach bled, why didn't you say anything?"

Clementine opened her mouth.

I went on. "When I asked you in the middle of the night whether my life was over, why didn't you say anything?"

Her tears spilled over.

"I was afraid you'd start hoping again."

I suddenly laughed.

So she'd known everything.

She knew why I drank, why I couldn't sleep, and she knew that every time I broke down, it was because of a fake diagnosis.

"Clementine, was that night the same?"

She went blank.

"What?"

"The night you brought me home from that work party. I held you and said I was sorry, that I might never be able to give you a child. You held me and said it was okay."

I stared at her.

"Even then, you already knew the report was fake, didn't you?"

Her face went white in an instant.

It was a long time before she nodded.

"I knew."

My chest felt like it had been utterly hollowed out.

The most laughable thing about that night wasn't that she later went to Ferris.

It was me, holding her, crying like a fool over a future that had never even been sentenced to death.

And she knew the truth perfectly well.

Yet she said nothing.

Clementine finally panicked and reached out to grab me.

"Lewis, I really didn't mean to hurt you. I just thought that if you accepted it first, things would be easier. Same with the child—I wanted to make sure no one would ever laugh at you again."

I took a step back.

Her hand closed on nothing.

"See—it's for my sake again."

My voice was very soft.

"Lying to me was for my sake. Carrying someone else's child was for my sake too."

"Clementine, has it ever occurred to you that my life doesn't need you making its decisions for me?"

She cried harder.

"I was wrong. From now on I'll ask you about everything—just don't look at me like that."

In the past, one look at her tears and I couldn't bring myself to press her on anything.

But this time, all I felt was tired.

I put the follow-up report back on the table.

"Clementine."

She looked up, one last flicker of hope still in her eyes.

I looked at her and said, one word at a time:

"Let's get a divorce."