The affair ended immediately. I texted Ethan: It’s over. He replied: Okay.

Years passed in icy civility. Michael left coffee for me each morning but never spoke. We attended events arm in arm, posing for photos like actors in a long-running play.

Now, sitting in Dr. Evans’ office nearly two decades later, that history felt suffocating.

“The lack of intimacy… is that correct?” she asked.

“Yes,” I admitted. “Eighteen years. Is that why I’m ill?”

“Not exactly.” She turned the monitor toward me. “I see significant uterine scarring. Consistent with a surgical procedure.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. “I’ve never had surgery.”

“The imaging is clear,” she replied. “Likely a D&C. And it happened many years ago. Are you sure you don’t remember?”

A D&C. An abortion.

I left the hospital in a fog. Then a memory surfaced: 2008. A week after the confrontation, I spiraled into depression. I took too many sleeping pills. Darkness. Waking in a hospital with pain low in my abdomen. Michael saying it was from having my stomach pumped.

I rushed home.

“Michael,” I demanded, trembling. “Did I have surgery in 2008?”

His face drained instantly. The newspaper slipped from his hands.

“What kind of surgery?” I cried. “Why don’t I remember?”

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

“Yes!”

“That night you overdosed, they ran labs. You were pregnant.”

The room spun. “Pregnant?”

“Three months,” he said bitterly. “We hadn’t touched in six.”

The baby was Ethan’s.

“What happened?”