A year after stealing my husband, my former best friend mailed me an invitation to her baby shower. “Come celebrate our little miracle,” she wrote with a cheerful smiley face beneath it. “Sorry you couldn’t give him a son.” I froze in my kitchen, staring at the open envelope from the DNA clinic lying beside it on the counter. The lab results clearly confirmed my ex-husband had been completely sterile since birth. Then my eyes drifted to the positive paternity test belonging to his younger brother, and a soft laugh escaped my lips. “I’ll be there,” I whispered into the empty room. She has absolutely no idea what gift I’m bringing. And when she opens it in front of everyone… her perfect little fairytale will go up in flames.
The invitation arrived inside a cream-colored envelope heavy with perfume and malice. My former best friend had written my name across the front in the same elegant looping handwriting she once used on birthday cards, apology notes, and even the guest list for my wedding.
Rain scratched softly against the kitchen windows while I stared at the gold lettering.
Come celebrate our little miracle.
Below it, in pink ink, she had added: Sorry you couldn’t give him a son. 🙂
For a moment, the room spun slightly around me.
Then my gaze shifted toward the second envelope already opened on the counter. White. Plain. Clinical.
The DNA clinic logo sat at the top like a sentence being handed down.
For six years, my ex-husband Daniel had convinced me I was the broken one. Six years of hormone injections, fertility specialists, invasive tests, tears, and his disappointed sighs every time another result came back negative. Six years of my best friend Camille holding my hand while secretly holding him too.
When I finally discovered them together, she cried beautifully into his shirt and whispered, “It just happened.”
Daniel looked me in the eyes and said, “She makes me feel like a man.”
Three months later, they announced their engagement.
Now Camille was pregnant.
Everyone called it fate.
I reread the lab report even though I already knew every word by memory. Daniel Mercer: congenital azoospermia. Sterile since birth. Not reduced fertility. Not damaged fertility. Impossible fertility.
