And, beneath it all, a certificate for a surgical procedure — a vasectomy, dated two years earlier.
For two years, Marshall had come with me to fertility appointments.
He had sat beside me while I took the injections, held my hand while the tests came back, and let me believe, every single time, that the failure was mine.
He had let me carry that grief like a personal flaw while he carried a certificate in a safe.
That was the moment the affair stopped being the story.
He hadn’t just cheated on me.
He had turned my love into a business plan and my body into a distraction.
Chapter 7 — No One Left to Defend Him
My mother came to me first, the way mothers do, and asked me not to throw away five years over one mistake.
I didn’t argue with her.