The Burden of Proof

The day my husband got his lab results stating he had a zero sperm count, I had just found out I was pregnant. He sat outside the hospital doors until the sun went down. Finally, in a dead-calm voice, he asked me, "Whose is it?" I thought he was just speaking out of shock and frustration. That was until his childhood best friend, Audrey, called him. "Don't give her the silent treatment to scare her," she said over the phone. "She's pregnant. If something happens to her from the stress, you'll be the one hurting. But Liam... the lab report is right there. If you want to pretend you didn't see it, I can't stop you." Liam didn't scream at me, nor did he mention divorce. He continued to drop me off at work and accompany me to my OB/GYN appointments. But every time we got back from a prenatal checkup, he would ask, "When are we taking care of it?" I told him countless times that the baby was his. But he would just hold me, his voice as gentle as it had always been. "Clara, I can pretend this never happened," he'd whisper. "We won't keep the baby, and we can go back to how we were." Until my tenth week, when I suddenly started hemorrhaging. By the time he rushed to the hospital, I had just been wheeled out of the operating room. A nurse told him the baby couldn't be saved. He stood by my hospital bed, his face ashen. I thought, finally, seeing me like this, he would believe me. Instead, he looked at the doctor and asked, "Is the fetal tissue still here? Can I request a paternity test?" I slid my wedding ring off my finger. "When the results come back, mail me the divorce papers." As for whose baby it was—to me, it didn't matter anymore. … The nurse handed over the authorization form. I flipped to the last page and signed my name. Liam stared at me, seemingly caught off guard by how decisively I did it. "Clara." "Sign yours too," I said. My voice was hoarse, the IV line in the back of my hand trembling slightly. "Sign it and get out. I want to sleep." The doctor took the clipboard. "The pathology sample will be transferred to a DNA testing facility. It usually takes about seven to ten business days." Liam immediately pressed, "Is there enough of a sample? Is there any risk of contamination?" The doctor finally looked up at him, exasperated. "The protocol will be followed exactly by the book. Your wife just had a D&C surgery. Let her rest." The hospital room door clicked shut. Liam sat back down by the bed, pulling the blanket up to cover my exposed feet. "Once the results are out, this will all be over." I kept my eyes closed. "Yeah. Over." He must have caught the double meaning. His hand paused on the edge of the blanket. "I never said I wanted a divorce." "I do." "You're in pain right now. Don't make impulsive decisions." There it was again. That phrase. Ever since he got that medical report, every word I said was dismissed as "being emotional." Meanwhile, every cruel question he asked was just him "being cautious" and "seeking the truth." When the anesthesia wore off, my lower abdomen cramped in rolling waves of agony. I curled into a ball. Liam instantly hit the call button, dropping to a crouch to hold my hand. "The doctor is coming." After three years of marriage, he was still just as gentle. When I first got pregnant and craved sour soup in the middle of the night, he drove halfway across the city to find a place that was open. Now, my baby was gone, and he sat by my side, only caring about whether or not it shared his blood. When I woke up again, it was dark. Liam wasn't in the room. From the hallway, I heard Audrey’s voice. "Ten weeks, theoretically yes. But with first-trimester tissue, whether they can successfully separate the maternal DNA from the fetal DNA depends on the sample." Liam's voice was heavy. "So the results might be wrong?" "I wouldn't bet my medical license on it." "If Clara was willing to sign it, she might actually have nothing to hide," Liam murmured. "Or..." "Or she looked it up beforehand and knows the lab might not get a conclusive read," Audrey scoffed. "Don't let her play you with a few tears before the results are even back." Liam was silent for a long time before speaking. "She just lost a baby. Watch how you talk about her." "Fine, my mistake," Audrey snorted. "Since we were kids, every time you were about to fall on your face, who warned you? Me. But she sheds two tears, and suddenly you're coming after me!" The door pushed open. Audrey walked in carrying a thermos. She paused when she saw my eyes open. "You heard?" She didn't try to hide it. I'll give her that. "I heard." Audrey set the thermos down and glared at Liam. "Told you to close the door!" Liam's face darkened. "You should go home." "I spent two hours making this soup and drove it all the way here without even taking a sip of water. Fine. Guess I'm just in the way." She walked to the door, then turned back. "Clara, our lab looked at his sample twice. You know exactly what Liam's situation is." I looked her dead in the eye. "Looking at the exact same sample before and after it goes into a centrifuge—does that count as two separate tests?" Audrey’s face shifted. "The results were the same both times. Does it make a difference?" "You looked at one sample twice, but you insisted to him that you ran the tests twice." I stared at her. "He trusted your medical opinion, so he decided I was a cheater and refused to acknowledge his own child." Liam gripped my shoulder. "Lie back down." I pushed his hand away. Audrey stood by the door, biting her lip. "I was trying to help you two. If you want to treat me like the enemy, fine!" "Audrey," Liam called out. "Send me the full lab report." She glared at him. "I already did. If you didn't bother looking at it, that's your fault." The door slammed shut. Liam pulled up the photo Audrey had texted him. It was cropped right at the line: No sperm observed after centrifugation. Whether there was any text below that, it was impossible to tell. He placed his phone face down on the table. "I'll go to the clinic and pick up the physical copy myself tomorrow." "Why didn't you go today?" He looked at me, saying nothing. Because to him, he already had his answer today. His wife was pregnant, and he had a zero sperm count. What was the point of double-checking? The next day, a doctor from the pathology department came in to log family medical history for the miscarriage screening. After asking me questions, the doctor turned to Liam. "Any history of genetic diseases on the paternal side?" Liam thought for a second. "If the biological father is someone else, shouldn't you be asking him?" The room fell dead silent. The doctor looked at him, then at me. I picked up my heavy medical binder and hurled it at him. Papers scattered all over the floor. "It's already dead! Who else do you want to drag in here to identify the body?!" Liam's face went pale. "I just want to know why it didn't survive." "You won't even admit it was yours! Why do you care why it's gone?!" He crouched down, picking up the papers one by one. The last sheet had landed in a puddle of water. He wiped it off with his sleeve. "Because you carried it." The doctor didn't ask anything else. She gathered her forms and left. Liam clipped the papers back into the binder and placed it out of my reach. "Take your anger out on me if you want, but don't hurt yourself." I stared at the red welt on his hand where the binder had struck him. I just felt an overwhelming sense of absurdity. That afternoon, Audrey sent him what she claimed was the "full" explanation, but it was just a raw data sheet. I asked him, "Didn't you say you were going to pick it up yourself?" "The attending urologist is out of town until next week. Audrey sent the paperwork over." "You believe every word she says." "She's worked in urology for eight years." "I'm your wife." Liam frowned. "Why are you comparing those two things?" "I'd love to know the answer to that too," I said, staring at him. "Why is it that just because she works at a clinic, you believe her when she implies I cheated?" "She never said you cheated." "Then what exactly are you investigating right now?" He looked away, flipping open my ultrasound report. "This says seven weeks. That week, I was in Chicago on business." I froze. "Do you honestly think 'seven weeks and two days' means we conceived exactly seven weeks and two days ago?" "Doesn't it?" "Gestational age is calculated from the first day of my last period. Not the day we slept together." "Audrey said ultrasound machines have a margin of error." He pulled up the calendar app on his phone from two months ago. "So tell me, which days was I home, and which days did I work the night shift?" "Are you interrogating me?" "I'm just trying to match the dates." "And after you match them?" "Once they match, I won't ask anymore." I snatched his phone out of his hand and locked the screen. "You know exactly what time I leave for work and what time I come home every single day. And now you want me to account for my days, one by one, to prove I didn't sleep with another man?" "I never said that." "But that's exactly what you're doing." Liam went quiet for a moment, then took his phone back. "If you don't want to talk about it, we'll wait for the DNA results." That night, my temperature spiked to 100.4 degrees. My surgical site was slightly infected. Liam didn't sleep a wink. At dawn, when I was shivering uncontrollably, he tucked my hands under his shirt against his warm skin. "Go to sleep. I'm right here." Delirious from the fever, I leaned into his chest. I had leaned on this chest for six years. When he was only making two thousand dollars a month, he handed me his debit card. When we struggled to conceive, he was the one who shielded me from his mother's endless nagging. I used to be so certain that even if the whole world doubted me, Liam would stand by my side. But as I rested against his chest, I heard the faint clicking of him texting Audrey. [She said the gestational age is actually two weeks off from conception.] Audrey replied quickly: [Ultrasounds have margins of error too. She can spin the math however she wants right now. Just wait for the DNA.] I sobered up instantly. I sat up, pulling away from his embrace. He reached out to feel my forehead. "Still cold?" "No." "Then try to sleep a little more." I turned over, facing the blank wall. The next morning, I was discharged. Liam tied my scarf around my neck and held my hand the entire drive home. I stared out the window. I didn't pull away, but I didn't hold his hand back, either. When we got home, I found the nursery completely empty. The crib, the baby clothes, the bottles—everything had been packed into cardboard boxes and shoved into the corner. Liam followed me into the room. "I packed it up. I didn't want you to look at it and get upset." "Where's the ultrasound photo?" He hesitated. "Audrey took it to verify the gestational timeline." I snapped my head toward him. "That was the only picture we had of it." "Once everything is cleared up, I'll go get it back." "And what if the results aren't what you want them to be?" Liam fell silent. "Then keeping it will only cause you pain." The mounting tape was still stuck to the wall. Even my right to mourn my own child had been suspended until he could verify its bloodline. He stayed home to take care of me for two days. He cooked during the day and applied a heating pad to my stomach at night. When I had no appetite, he would patiently reheat the food. When the cramps woke me up in the middle of the night, the moment the bedside lamp clicked on, he was already walking in from the living room. "Hurts again?" I nodded. Liam let me rest against his shoulder, his palm pressing warmly against my abdomen. "The doctor said the DNA report will take a little longer." I closed my eyes. I was one breath away from asking him to just let the report go. If he just said he trusted me, it would be enough. The next morning, I found a hand-drawn calendar on the dining table. It had my last menstrual cycle, his business trips, his overtime shifts, and all my OB appointments meticulously charted out. A red marker circled a four-day window. He had been out of town for two of those days. I walked into the kitchen holding the paper. Liam was turning off the stove. "You drew this?" He glanced at it, his stirring slowing down. "No matter how I calculate it, the math is off by a few days." "And?" "Tell me the exact date." "I told you, you can't calculate gestational age like this." "Then explain it to me again." He set down the spoon. "Clara, I'm losing my mind here. You could clear this up with one sentence, so why are you fighting me on this?" "I told you the baby is yours. Does that count as a sentence?" "I need the date!" "I don't remember the exact date! We slept together multiple times that month!" I ripped the paper in half. Liam bent down to pick up the pieces, his voice dropping an octave. "The more defensive you get, the harder it is for me to believe you." "I already told you it was yours." "But the medical report says otherwise." "If you believe the report, why are you asking me?!" He froze. I yanked my arm out of his grasp and threw the torn pieces into the trash. The doorbell rang. Audrey stood on the porch holding a manila folder. She walked in and effortlessly pulled a pair of gray house slippers from the bottom rack of our shoe cabinet. I had never seen those slippers before. "Are those yours?" I asked. Audrey paused, then slipped her feet into them anyway. "I came over to drop off paperwork while you were in the hospital. Liam couldn't exactly make me walk around barefoot." Liam walked out of the kitchen. "Give me the file and go." "I just got off a night shift. I haven't even had a sip of water, and you two are taking your marital issues out on me?" She noticed the torn calendar in the trash. "What's the point of doing math? Just wait for the results." I snatched the torn paper away. "Who said you could touch that?" Audrey straightened up. "Clara, why the attitude? I didn't write the lab report, and I sure didn't get you pregnant." "Then why do you have my ultrasound photo?" "Liam couldn't read the dates. I was just taking a look to help him out." "If he couldn't read it, he could have asked his OB/GYN." "You two are impossible. One is stubborn as a mule, and the other is in denial. Fine, whatever. Just tear your house apart." She pulled the ultrasound photo from her bag. The corner was creased with a harsh white line. I took it and carefully smoothed it out. "Clara, Liam has bent over backward for you," Audrey sneered. "Any other man who saw a zero-sperm report would have left you rotting at the hospital." "So I should be thanking him?" "What are you, a rabid dog? Biting everyone who tries to help?" "Audrey!" Liam snatched the folder from her hands. "That's enough." She laughed. "It's always like this. You beg me to come over, and when things blow up, I'm the bad guy." I looked at Liam. "You asked her to come?" "I asked her to bring the report." "You couldn't get it by email?" "Physical copies are clearer." Audrey grabbed her purse. "Fine, I'm leaving. Since Liam is fine playing the oblivious cuckold, why should I care?" After the door slammed shut, I tucked the ultrasound into my wallet and pulled out the printed divorce agreement. Liam flipped through two pages and closed it. "The results aren't back yet." "It has nothing to do with the results." "It does to me." "If the baby was yours, what were you planning to do?" He looked at me. "I'll apologize. You can ask me to make it up to you however you want." "And if it's not?" "Tell me who the guy is, and we'll leave it at that." I let out a sharp, bitter laugh. Liam’s frown deepened. "I've already compromised this much. What more do you want?" "Sign the papers." "Not happening." He locked the agreement in a drawer. "I'm not discussing divorce until your body is fully healed." "Give me the key." "Clara, stop being unreasonable." I grabbed a water glass and smashed it against the drawer. Glass shattered everywhere, but the lock held. Liam grabbed me by the waist, lifting me away from the shards. My nails dug into his forearms, leaving bloody scratches. He didn't let go. "Hit me, curse at me, do whatever you want." "Just heal first." That night, Liam stayed in his home office until very late. I got up to find some painkillers. Through the crack in the door, I could hear him on the phone with Audrey. "Are you seriously thinking this through? If it turns out it's not yours, you're still going to stay with her?" Liam leaned back in his chair, holding the printed divorce agreement. "Yes." "You're out of your mind! Won't it eat you alive every time you look at her?" "The baby is already gone." Audrey was silent for a moment. "What about the other guy?" "If she tells me the truth, I won't pursue it." "Liam, what the hell are you doing this for?" He looked down, his thumb tracing over my signature on the paper. "I've been with her for six years." "And?" "I can't live without her." Audrey scoffed. "You're not building a life with a wife, you're worshiping an idol." "Say whatever you want." "She's just using the divorce to scare you. When the DNA test proves she cheated, she's still going to manipulate you for the rest of your life." "She's not really going to leave." "You're that sure?" "She wouldn't be able to let us go." Liam truly did know me. I couldn't let go of these six years. I couldn't let go of the man who had loved me so deeply. Nor could I let go of the baby that had only been with us for ten weeks. But he forgot one thing. When a person is pushed so far that the only thing keeping them there is "I can't let go," that's the only thing left of the love. I went back to the bedroom, pulled out my suitcase, and started packing. The sound of the zipper startled him. He practically ran into the room. "Why are you packing?" "I'm moving out." He looked at my suitcase, then glanced toward the hallway. "You heard what I said on the phone?" "I heard." "Then why are you leaving?" Liam grabbed the handle of the suitcase. "Regardless of the results, I never planned on leaving you." I looked at his bloodshot eyes and the fresh scratches on his arms. He really was terrified of losing me. He really did love me. But the 'Clara' he loved was a woman who was carrying another man's child, who lied, who was stubborn, and who only got to stay in her marriage because of his immense generosity. Even though that version of me didn't exist. "Liam, you still think this is about whether you want me." He gripped the handle tighter. "Just wait two more days for the DNA. Two days." "If the baby wasn't yours, you'd be keeping a liar you graciously forgave." "I said I wouldn't hold it against you." "And what if it is yours?" His lips parted. "I'll apologize." I let out a dry laugh. "And then what? I just go back to playing house with a husband who, while I was bleeding from a miscarriage, prioritized asking for a paternity test?" The color slowly drained from Liam's face. "My mind was a mess. I wasn't thinking straight." "Are you thinking straight now?" He didn't answer. Because the results still weren't back. I pried his fingers off the suitcase handle, one by one. "No matter what the results say, I have no reason to stay." Liam chased me to the elevator. "Go stay with your parents for a couple of days. Once the report is out, I'll come pick you up." I pressed the button to close the doors. "Don't." "When are you coming back?" The elevator doors slowly slid shut. "I'm not."

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