Chapter 11: Sealed at the Patient's Request

The mediator began by thanking everyone for coming.

Nobody thanked her back.

I sat across from my husband with Joanne at my elbow and looked at his hands on the walnut.

He wasn't wearing the ring.

"We have one item to open before the property schedule," Joanne said.

She set her file box on the table and took out a blue folder.

Barbara's pearls shifted.

"The court unsealed this on Tuesday," Joanne said.

"The Halvorsen Fertility Clinic produced it on Friday. It's part of the discovery on the marital expenses."

"That file is privileged," Barbara said.

"Not after the order, Mrs. Tamblyn."

Russell hadn't moved.

His face had gone a color I'd never seen on it.

Joanne opened the folder and slid it across the walnut to me.

It was eight pages, stapled at the corner.

The top sheet had the clinic's blue letterhead and a patient name in capitals.

TAMBLYN, RUSSELL J.

It was dated five years ago in March.

That was the spring we first walked into the Halvorsen clinic.

It was the first day Russell had signed the forms.

I read the first line.

Then I read the second, and the third.

I had to put my finger under the words to keep my place.

It was a laboratory report.

The numbers were low, so low that even I could see it.

At the bottom, the doctor had written a note.

I read it aloud, in a voice I didn't recognize.

"Natural conception is possible but extremely unlikely."

"Estimated odds in any given cycle are far below one percent."

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