Chapter 8: The Third Paper

Sabine's POV

I came home on the second night with a headache and nothing to say.

The bedroom was dark.

Three papers lay on the nightstand with their edges squared.

Jasper always squared his papers.

I switched on the lamp.

The first was the divorce petition.

My own signature sat on the last line.

I had signed it in a hospital room while he lay in a bed and watched me.

I remembered the folder.

I remembered throwing it at him.

I sat down on the edge of the mattress.

The second page was a clinic form with his name at the top.

Consent for vasectomy.

The date was five weeks old.

The next morning after I told him about the couple online, he had gone and done it.

I read the third page twice.

Vasectomy reversal. Dated the morning after I came home with Tobin's arm around me.

He had lain in a bed and asked me if I was curious.

I had told him not to take a bed someone else needed.

My mouth would not close.

I got up and walked into the study.

The key to the desk drawer was on my ring, where it had been for six years.

The drawer stuck, and I yanked it.

A gray folder lay at the bottom.

I did not need to open it.

I opened it anyway.

My own name. My own birthdate.

Operative report, six years ago, when I was a resident and Jasper had only been courting me for two years.

The tissue could not be saved.

Both ovaries.

The line at the bottom had been typed by a doctor I trusted.

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