Page 44 of Grounds for Love

I take the glass of tea from her and drink half in one gulp. “It’s time to tackle the closet. I don’t even know what’s in half these boxes.”

I take off the lid of one box marked miscellaneous and pull out the first paper I come to.

“See?” I turn it around for Joy to see. “Why do we need Dad’s country club receipt from twenty years ago?”

Joy laughs. “Wow, a hundred and twenty-five dollars. I bet today it’s triple that cost. But you know, we did enjoy the club pool during the summers.”

I grin at the memories “We did.”

We’d go as a family on Sunday afternoons with Mom and Dad. Then after they passed, it was just me and Joy.

“We do have everything for chicken parm. I’ll go get started and then after dinner, I’ll help.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Hey, aren’t you doing anything with Rod tonight?”

“No. He’s working the late shift. He won’t be home till after ten. I told him I was spending the night here.”

I’m just beginning to smell the aroma of the chicken parm as I reach for a box pushed to the back of the top shelf. I finally get my fingers around the edge and scoot it forward. Unfortunately, I miscalculate and it comes tumbling down on my head, knocking me to the floor.

I’m dazed, but okay. The box wasn’t that heavy, but all the papers inside spilled and are now surrounding me as I’m splayed out awkwardly on the floor. “Crap!”

“You okay?” Joy calls from the kitchen.

“Yes, I’m fine. No worries.” I get to my knees and start picking up the papers and dumping them back in the box. I glance to see which pile to put the box in when Bryan’s name jumps out at me. That’s not strange, but the sender of the bill is a medical center I’m not familiar with. The address is Centerville, which is at least a two-hour drive from where we lived. The date on the bill is a year after we were married. I don’t remember Bryan having any medical issues that would have needed outpatient surgery.

As I’m going over the itemized bill, I sit back down on the floor trying to make sense of what I’m seeing. I grab my phone and do a Google search to make sure of the definitions of some of the medical terms. This can’t be right.

Bryan had a vasectomy the year after we were married?

Why? I don’t understand. A coldness swirls inside my chest.

“Jen? What’s going on?”

A high-pitched trill of pain leaves my mouth and I hold out the paper. It only takes her a moment before she joins me on the floor.

“Bryan had a vasectomy?” she asks.

I stare at the paper in her hands like it’s a snake. “It looks that way.”

Joy’s brows draw together. “You didn’t know about it?”

I shake my head. “Not until this moment.”

She glances back at the paper. “What does it mean?”

My stomach is turning and a feeling of dread threatens to take over my body. “I guess it means I didn’t know my husband.”

“Wait. Weren’t you on the pill?”

“I was for a long time until we started trying to have a child…”

My blood runs cold and I look at my sister. I gasp and my hand covers my mouth. “That’s why we couldn’t get pregnant. Bryan wasn’t capable of fathering a child. But why…why didn’t he tell me? Why did he give me false hope? Every month when it didn’t happen, I cried. I felt like a failure because I couldn’t give my husband the child we so desperately wanted. At least I thought we both wanted.”

Joy wraps her arms around my cold body. “Jen, don’t cry. I’m sure there was a good reason. Bryan loved you.”

I touch my cheek and my fingers come away wet. I see Joy’s mouth moving, but I can’t hear what she’s saying. I’m not sure what’s happening to me. The room is spinning. “Joy, I don’t feel so good.”

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