Protect that.”
He was right.
Harrison had spent years trying to drag me into his version of reality.
I would not hand him my career just because the truth had finally arrived.
I tucked the report back into the folder and stood.
When the elevator opened on the children’s floor, the waiting room had resumed moving, but the tension remained.
The nurse at the desk saw Elliot beside me and immediately straightened.
Harrison was in the same place, scrolling through his phone.
Lauren sat near the stroller, her face colorless.
When she saw the cream folder under Elliot’s arm, she closed her eyes.
Harrison noticed us a second later.
His smile returned, but more slowly this time.
“You brought a lawyer?” he asked.
“For what? Hurt feelings?”
“No,” I said.
“For records.”
Elliot asked the charge nurse whether we could use a nearby family consultation room.
She unlocked one without asking questions.
Harrison hesitated at the doorway.
Lauren pushed the stroller inside.
The room was small, with four chairs, a box of tissues, and a round table meant for conversations no family wanted to have.
Rain blurred the window.
The baby made a soft sound and reached for the stuffed elephant Lauren had retrieved from the floor.
Harrison remained standing.
“All right,” he said.
“Let’s hear the performance.”
I placed both hands on the back of a chair.
“When did you learn you had no viable sperm?”
The smugness disappeared from his face so quickly that even Lauren looked startled.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Elliot opened the folder.
Harrison’s eyes dropped to the report, then snapped back to mine.
“That’s private medical information.”
“You used our joint account to pay the clinic,” Elliot said.
“The records were produced during a compliance review connected to unresolved marital assets.”
Harrison pointed at him.
“You have no right to discuss that here.”
“You discussed my fertility in a public waiting room,” I said.
“You called me useless in our home.
You let me spend years believing I was the reason we could not have a child.”
His jaw worked before any words came.
Finally, he said, “Those tests are not always definitive.”
“Then why did you use a donor?”
Silence filled the room.
Lauren’s gaze moved from him to me.
Harrison turned on her.
“You spoke to him?”
She flinched.
“You said Nora knew,” Lauren whispered.
“You said she refused treatment because she didn’t want a baby badly enough.”
“I said our marriage was over.”
“You said it had been over for months.”
“It was over emotionally.”
“No,” I said.
“Six weeks before your treatment, Harrison was still coming to appointments with me.
He was still discussing another cycle.
