Chapter 4 - Seven Years Of Blame
For seven years, Connor had let me believe my body was the reason our home went quiet.
Seven years of clinics.
Seven years of injections.
Seven years of blood tests, ultrasounds, calendars, pills, specialist appointments, and silent car rides home.
Seven years of him gripping the steering wheel and saying, “I’m just tired, Kirsten.”
Seven years of me saying, “I’m sorry.”
I had apologized for grief.
For biology.
For failing at something no one had proven was mine to fail.
And he had accepted every apology like payment.
Connor pointed at Kenneth. “That’s impossible.”
Kenneth handed him one page.
Connor didn’t take it.
So Kenneth held it where everyone could see the hospital letterhead, the lab seal, the signature blocks.
“These are the original fertility evaluations from Westbridge Reproductive Center,” Kenneth said. “They were altered before being shown to Dr. Sinclair.”
My mouth went dry.
“Altered?” I whispered.
Kenneth looked at me gently.
“Yes.”
The hallway blurred around the edges.
Connor shook his head. “No. No, we saw those results together.”
“No,” Kenneth said. “You saw the real results first. Dr. Sinclair was later given edited copies.”
I looked at Connor.
His silence told me everything.
Melinda began crying quietly on the floor.
A nurse brought paper towels, but nobody knew whether they were for the milk or the woman unraveling beside it.
Connor’s voice dropped. “This is fake.”
Kenneth removed another document.
“The clinic’s former records administrator gave a sworn statement. She admitted Mr. Fleming paid her to alter the patient copies and remove his diagnosis from the packet.”
I could not breathe.
Not because he had been infertile.
That would never have made me leave him.
Not once.
I would have held his hand. I would have built a different future. I would have loved him through the truth.
But he had looked at my pain and decided it was useful.
Connor looked around the hallway.
The same audience he had collected now watched him with open disgust.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
I laughed once.
It came out broken.
“You let me mourn children we couldn’t have while knowing I wasn’t the reason.”
His face tightened.
“I was ashamed.”
That word almost made me sick.
Ashamed.
As if shame excused cruelty.
As if embarrassment gave him permission to turn my body into a crime scene.
I stepped closer.
“No, Connor. You were not ashamed.”
He swallowed.
May you like
“You were afraid of being small.”
And everyone heard it.
