I read the words, but my brain refused to process them.
Patient: Raymond Mendez
Diagnosis: Severe Azoospermia due to childhood mumps complication.
Prognosis: Absolute and irreversible sterility. Count: 0%.
The date on the paper was from the second year of our marriage.
I fell back into the office chair, the air completely leaving my lungs for the second time that night. I was sterile. I had always been sterile.
A loose note fell out from between the medical pages. It was a letter from Lucy.
“Ray,
You brought the medical results home four years ago, but you never opened the envelope. You were too proud, too terrified that the ‘flaw’ might be yours. So you threw it in the bottom drawer and started drinking. I found it. I read it. And when I confronted the doctor, he confirmed you could never biologically father a child.
