His entire accusation had rested on one idea: surgery meant instant sterility.
It did not.
The timeline he had used to condemn me did not exclude him at all.
Paola looked at him.
“You said there was no possibility.”
Diego’s face hardened.
“There wasn’t supposed to be.”
“That isn’t the same thing,” she said.
He ignored her.
Instead, he looked at Dr.
Salinas.
“Fine.
So there’s a chance.
That’s all you’re saying.”
The doctor glanced back at the ultrasound.
“No.
That is not all.”
My fingers tightened around the paper sheet beneath me.
I had almost forgotten the thing that made her stop in the first place.
The second shape.
The reason she had zoomed in.
Dr.
Salinas moved the transducer again.
A second flicker appeared.
Then another rapid rhythm filled the room.
I stared at the screen.
My brain refused to understand what my eyes were seeing.
Dr.
Salinas smiled carefully.
“There are two.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“Two embryos.
Two heartbeats.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I looked from one tiny pulsing shape to the other.
For weeks I had been terrified of raising one child alone.
Now there were two.
Two babies Diego had already rejected.
Two babies his mother had called disgraceful without ever seeing them.
Two babies Paola had sat across from me in a café and treated like evidence of my betrayal.
I started crying.
Not the soft tears I had cried when I first heard the heartbeat.
These came with fear, disbelief, anger, and something so fierce I could barely name it.
Dr.
Salinas gave me a moment.
Diego did not.
“Twins?” he said.
The word came out flat.
Paola stared at him.
“You told me she cheated.”
“She did.”
His answer was immediate.
Too immediate.
I turned my head toward him.
“You just heard the doctor.”
