“Five years and two months,” Elena replied.
We’d separated five years and eleven months ago.
Years earlier, we’d spent three grueling years trying for a family. A fertility doctor said Elena’s numbers were poor — never “impossible.” But I heard what I feared most. And my mother Beatrice did the rest, dinner after dinner. “A man needs an heir,” she finally said.
I left a folder of surrogacy brochures on the kitchen island.
“Do you want a child, or do you want to stay married to me?” Elena asked.
“I want both,” I said.
“And what if I can’t give you children?”
I said nothing.
