The master closet was larger than the bedroom I had shared with my sister when we were girls. I pulled a navy leather suitcase from the top shelf and set it on the packing island.
I did not touch the designer dresses or the silk blouses Evan had bought for corporate galas. I packed three pairs of dark trousers, four cotton shirts, and my passport from the leather tray by the mirror.
From the small digital safe behind the cedar panel, I retrieved my passport and my mother’s vintage gold wristwatch, slipping it onto my wrist and fastening the leather strap.
Beside the velvet jewelry boxes lay a thick, sealed white envelope from the Austin Diagnostic Laboratory.
It had arrived by courier three days ago, marked confidential and addressed directly to me. Inside were the certified results of the semen analysis Evan had taken under a false name during our second year of fertility treatments.
I had kept it hidden, hoping the doctors were wrong, hoping the zero-percent motility report was a temporary anomaly. But the subsequent tests, filed under a corporate medical insurance code I had quietly tracked, had confirmed the permanent biological truth.
Evan was entirely, irreversibly infertile.
I held the sealed envelope against my side, its heavy parchment paper crisp against my palm.
The sound of Leah’s quiet voice came through the floorboards from the kitchen below, followed by the low, rumbling tone of Evan’s laugh. They were already arranging the nursery in their minds, claiming the house my father had built.
I zipped the navy suitcase, took a deep breath, and walked back down the stairs with the sealed envelope in my right hand.
They were still standing in the dining room when I returned, the blue eighty-million-dollar check still resting near Margaret’s handbag.
Evan looked up, a thin smirk appearing on his face when he saw the single suitcase in my hand. “Smart move, Claire. We can have the movers pack the rest of your things on Monday.”
