Her gaze moved toward the glass, where Ben stood watching from the corridor.
“He shouldn’t have called you.”
“The lawyer called me.”
“I told him to wait.”
“Until you died?”
Clara closed her eyes.
Ethan wanted to demand an explanation.
He wanted to tell her how deeply her silence had wounded him.
But the tubes, the bruises from needles, and the effort required for each breath stripped the anger from his voice.
“Why did you let me believe there was someone else?” he asked.
“I never said there was.”
“You wouldn’t explain the money.”
“I was trying to find the right moment.”
“And when I asked for a divorce?”
A tear slipped into Clara’s hair.
“You looked relieved after you said it.”
Ethan flinched.
“I was terrified.”
“So was I.”
She turned her face toward him.
“After the miscarriages, every room in our home felt like evidence of something my body had failed to give you.
Then the doctors found the tumor.
They told me treatment might take the rest of my fertility.
I thought if I told you, you would stay because leaving a sick woman would make you feel like a monster.”
“I did leave a sick woman.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have known something was wrong.”
“Yes,” Clara said.
“You should have asked one more time without accusing me.”
He accepted the words without defending himself.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara studied him, perhaps searching for the familiar reflex to explain or excuse.
He gave her none.
“I signed the embryo directive,” he said.
“They’re being preserved.
Nothing will happen without your decision.”
Her expression broke.
For the first time, she openly cried.
“I thought the clinic had already destroyed them.”
“They haven’t.”
Ethan told her about the Portland treatment and the transfer approval.
Clara immediately shook her head.
“I can’t let you spend your savings.”
“It isn’t payment for forgiveness.”
“Then what is it?”
“A choice I’m making with the truth in front of me.”
Clara looked at him for a long time.
Finally, she asked for Dr.
Ortiz.
The doctor explained the treatment carefully.
There were no promises.
The protocol carried serious risks, and Clara might be too weak to complete it.
But without another option, her condition would continue to decline.
Clara signed the consent form.
The transfer took place that night.
Ethan rode in a car behind the ambulance while Ben sat beside him.
