The doctor barely smiled. “Mrs. Laura, there are two.”
I covered my mouth.
Two.
It was not a baby. There were two of them. Two lives growing inside me while outside everyone was calling me a traitor. Two hearts beating while Diego toasted with Paola in Polanco. Two children their own father had already denied before even knowing they existed.
The doctor turned off the sound to give me space, but the echo of those heartbeats kept bouncing around in my head.
Diego sat down in a chair suddenly, as if his legs had been cut from under him.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”
Paola looked at him with a mixture of anger and fear. “Twins?”
Dr. Salinas corrected herself gently. “Early twin pregnancy. It will need to be closely monitored.”
I cried, but not like in the bathroom anymore. Differently. With pain, yes. But also with a new strength I had not known I possessed.
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Doctor, are my babies okay?”
My babies. Saying it broke me and sustained me at the same time.
“For now, yes,” she said. “There is cardiac activity in both of them. We will need frequent checkups, relative rest, tests, and a great deal of peace and quiet.”
Diego let out a broken laugh. “Peace. Of course.”
The doctor turned to him. “Sir, with all due respect, if you came here to further upset my patient, I am going to ask you to leave.”
My patient. Not his wife. Not the accused. Me. For the first time in weeks, someone was on my side.
Diego stood. “Laura, we need to talk.”
I sat up slowly. The doctor helped me clean off the gel and handed me a towel. My hands were trembling, but not from fear.
“No,” I said.
Diego frowned. “What do you mean, no?”
“We do not need to talk here. Not now. Not in front of her.”
I looked at Paola. She blushed.
“It is not my fault that you—”
“You knew I was married,” I said. “You knew I was pregnant, and you still came to this office to watch me be humiliated. Do not pretend to be a visitor.”
Paola opened her mouth and found nothing decent to say.
Diego took a step toward me. “Laura, I did not know. The vasectomy—”
“The vasectomy did not force you to look at me the way you did. It did not force you to leave with her that same night. It did not force you to post photos saying life had taken a lie from you. It did not force you to send papers to take my house and charge me for years of marriage as if I had been a bad investment.”
Paola stared at him. “You charged her expenses?”
Diego closed his eyes. “It was a legal strategy.”
I almost laughed. “What a lovely name cowards give to cruelty.”
I grabbed my bag. The doctor handed me the printed ultrasound images. I clutched them to my chest like armor.
“I will continue my prenatal care with you, doctor,” I said. “But do not give him any information if I am not present.”
Diego raised his head. “I am the father.”
There it was. Late. But there. Suddenly he wanted the word.
“An hour ago you came to hear how many weeks pregnant someone else’s child was. Fatherhood does not happen only when the outcome suits you.”
I walked out of the doctor’s office without waiting for a response.
My legs were trembling in the hallway. I kept my back straight, even as I was breaking inside.
Diego followed me. Paola too.
“Laura, wait.”
I did not wait.
He reached the elevator and stopped the door. “Please.”
That word sounded strange coming from him. He had never used it when he thought he was right.
“I am going to get tested,” he said. “DNA, semen analysis, whatever you want. We are going to fix this.”
I looked at him from inside the elevator.
“Do not confuse fixing with returning.”
The door closed.
And finally, without him in front of me, I bent forward.
I cried with the ultrasound images pressed to my chest while a stranger in the elevator asked if I was okay.
I was not okay.
But my babies were.
And that day, that was enough.
I got home and locked the door. Then I pushed a chair against it out of habit, though I no longer knew if it was fear or something closer to courage. I left the pictures on the table and stared at them for hours.
Two little spots. Two heartbeats. Two lives.
My mother arrived in the afternoon. I had sent her a photo of the ultrasound and one sentence.
There are two.
read more in next page
