Chapter 10: Three Years

The lawyer listened to the whole story without writing anything down.

When I finished, she took off her glasses and set them on the blotter.

"I can't get Lakeshore's records without a subpoena," she said. "That takes ten days, and he'll be told it's coming."

"Is there anything faster?"

"Your own chart is yours." She tapped the desk. "Your fertility clinic keeps a partner file. If he ever filled anything out, it's in there."

I drove to the clinic on my lunch hour.

It was the same waiting room, the same fish tank and the same stack of magazines about babies that I had read cover to cover for two years.

The woman at the desk knew me by name.

"Leah," she said warmly. "Are we scheduling another round?"

"I'd like a copy of my full chart, please. Including the partner file."

She pulled the file and made the copies while I stood at the counter.

It was a thin folder.

My side had eleven tabs, with every blood panel, every scan and every note about my cycles.

His side had one sheet.

I recognized the handwriting at the top.

*Partner semen analysis: declined.*

*Patient reports normal results from outside provider, no records available.*

At the bottom was Derek's signature, dated the week we started treatment.

I had stood beside him in that room while he signed it.

He had said, "I got tested last year, babe, it's all fine," and I had believed him because he looked me in the eye.