That morning, I put on my favorite blue blouse. We sat beside each other on the bus and took a photograph.
I was smiling. But my husband seemed unusually tense.
As the bus left the city, he grabbed my hand.
“Margaret, there’s something I need to confess.”
I laughed.
“I hope you don’t have a young mistress.”
He didn’t smile. Instead, he pulled an old envelope from his bag.
“Your father paid me five hundred dollars every month for forty years.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“What for?”
“So you would never find out the real reason we don’t have children.”
My heart began pounding.
“Robert, explain yourself!”
He lowered his head.
“That night in the hospital, things happened very differently from what we told you.”