Diego stepped closer to the ultrasound monitor, still wearing the expression of a man who believed he had come to witness his own vindication.
Paola remained near the door, one hand wrapped around the strap of her purse.
She looked uncomfortable for the first time since she had entered.
Dr.
Salinas did not raise her voice.
She simply pointed at the screen.
“First,” she said, “we need to discuss the dates.”
Diego folded his arms.
“I already know the dates.
I had a vasectomy two months ago.”
“Yes,” the doctor replied.
“Laura told me.”
He glanced at me as if my repeating that fact proved something against me.
Dr.
Salinas continued moving through the ultrasound images.
“Do you remember being told that a vasectomy does not make a man sterile immediately?”
Diego’s jaw tightened.
Nobody spoke.
The machine hummed beside us.
I remembered the appointment clearly.
The doctor who performed Diego’s procedure had explained that sperm could remain for a period afterward and that follow-up testing was necessary before relying on the vasectomy as contraception.
I had reminded Diego of that in our kitchen.
He had laughed at me.
Now Dr.
Salinas was saying the same thing in a room where he could not dismiss the words as the desperation of a supposedly unfaithful wife.
“Did you complete the follow-up test?” she asked him.
Diego looked toward Paola.
That tiny movement answered before his mouth did.
“I was going to.”
Dr.
Salinas waited.
“But did you?”
“No.”
For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the rapid heartbeat coming from the ultrasound machine.
I looked at Diego.
He did not look at me.
Paola shifted her weight.
“So that means what?” she asked.
Dr.
Salinas turned the monitor slightly.
“It means the procedure alone cannot establish that Diego was incapable of causing a pregnancy during that period.”
My throat tightened.
Not because I was surprised.
Because I had told him exactly that.
He had chosen humiliation instead.
Diego shook his head.
“That still doesn’t prove the baby is mine.”
“No,” Dr.
Salinas said.
“An ultrasound does not establish paternity.
A DNA test can address that later.”
He seemed to recover a little at those words.
Then she added, “But the dating matters.”
She pointed to the measurements on the screen, careful to explain them rather than simply hand us a conclusion.
The pregnancy was farther along than Diego had assumed when he saw my positive test.
The estimated conception window fell before the point at which he had decided his vasectomy made pregnancy impossible.
