SHOCK
I was in for my annual physical - every August. This year it was being done by a new doctor. My old guy had retired. The new one was a young woman - Marian Wellner. She was a pert red-head, maybe early thirties. I was a little reluctant to have her do the physical. Part of it involved intimate physical contact, and I wondered about embarrassment.
Dr. Wellner's nurse had done a lot of the preliminary things, like blood pressure, EKG, and taking stock of my ability to recall book, apple, table after a few minutes. I always worried about that one.
But this time I was worried about being basically naked with a young woman, an attractive young woman. I needn't have worried. I was so worried that there was no chance of arousal. When we were done that part, she smiled at me and said, "Well, I bet you're happy that's done."
"Yes. I am. Thanks." I smiled back at her.
The remainder of the exam was routine. My blood work was great, and everything checked out.
As we were about to part, she asked, "You have three children?'
"Yes. Two boys and a girl."
"Did you adopt?"
"No."
"In vitero?"
"Why have you asked?"
She flushed. "Well, I'm new and I went over all your records before this meeting."
"Oh."
"You...well never mind. Thanks for being so prompt." She was flailing.
"You need to explain, Doctor. It's my body."
"Mr. Miller, you have a condition. You've been infertile since birth."
Mr. Miller - that's me Ted Miller. "Oh."
"No one told you?"
"No. Please make copies of all my medical records." I was now about as shocked as it was possible to be.
"Sure. Sorry. I should have kept quiet."
"No. Not at all. Apparently too many people have kept quiet."
I got the records in about thirty minutes. Meanwhile, I thought about it. I was forty-eight. I had been married for twenty-six years, to Melissa. We have three children, Brad, twenty-four, Mary, twenty-two, and William, twenty. At least I thought we had three children.
Brad was married, with a son on the way. Mary just graduated from college and William was a rising junior. I wondered who their real father was. But, as I considered it, I found that I was unconvinced about what Dr. Wellner had said. All three looked somewhat like me. Somewhat.
When they brought the records, I took them to my office and scanned them all. I looked at various possibilities for checking what she had said. I called a college buddy of mine who was a doctor in New York. He called me back in an hour. He was Mark Madden, a urologist. Close enough.
I said, "Hi, Mark. I need a consult. But not in person. And I need strict confidentiality."
"Tell me about it." I did.
"Email me the records, and I'll go over them this afternoon."
"Done, and please send a bill. The favor is doing it quickly."
He called me back at three-thirty.
"Ted. You had a condition at birth which caused infertility. I assume that you have not done anything about it."
"Didn't know about it."
"Well, then, when you were born, and diagnosed, there was nothing to be done. In the last ten years, we have a method for helping."
"Can you send me a primer on that, Mark?"
"Sure. I'll email it to you in ten. Good luck."
"Thanks."
"Hey, Ted. Don't you have kids?"
"Yes. Well, I thought so."
"Oh. Oh. I see. Good luck with that."
I hung up from that call and made a call to a DNA lab. I arranged for them to send me some kits - that day. They arrived at five o'clock.
I stuffed them into my brief case and started home.
My youngest, William was still home from school, and would leave the next week. As I considered it, it seemed to me that testing one of the kids was enough. Will was home when I got there, reading in the living room. Melissa was cooking. She usually got home early from her job, selling real estate, through an agency owned by my older brother Robert. I smelled fish. Cooking, that is.
The three of us ate crusted cod and a salad. Good food. I believe Mel noticed my reticence, but Will maybe not.
Mell is also forty-eight. She's gained not a pound since college, where we met. She has dark brown hair and eyes, like me. She's 5'8", 130, and quite pretty.
As Mel and I were cleaning up, I filched a glass that Will had used at dinner. Later I took it upstairs and rubbed the rim with the swab I had. Then I went to Will's room and got some hairs from his brush. And I swabbed the neckline of a t-shirt in his dirty clothes basket. Also, his sneakers. I swabbed my cheek, sealed all the stuff into envelopes and stuck it in my case.
Will went out that evening, and when he left, Mel asked me, "What's going on with you, Ted? You're subdued. You had your physical. Is something wrong?"
"Nope. Healthy as ever. I guess I had some nerves about the new doctor."
"How was she?"
"Good. Pretty. I was nervous, you know."
She laughed. She had an infectious laugh. "You didn't get hard, did you?"
"No. Too nervous. About getting hard."
"Well, I see her next week. I'll ask her. Just to check."
"Uh huh." I walked away.
That night she wanted sex, and I told her that I was not feeling so hot. She accepted that, somewhat gracefully. Me turning her down was unusual.
The next day I took the DNA samples to the lab myself. I paid for a quick turnaround. They said they'd have something by Friday - two days.
I went to work. I'm a lawyer for an investment bank. Basically, I run the in-house team of six other attorneys. We're located in D.C. - close to the regulatory action. I've been at this work for twenty-two years, and I make a very good living. I also have stock options that, if cashed in, would be worth a very tidy sum.
I confess that I was distracted at work. Nevertheless, things that needed to be done were done. I had bicycled into work and I biked back. The exercise, I thought, would calm me down.
Mel was not home when I got there at six. She'd left a note that there were sandwiches and a salad in the fridge. She was going to a showing, and then maybe for a girl's night out. I normally wouldn't have thought much of this. She did do both of those things with some regularity. But now, no trust at all. I ran a phone locator on her phone. It wasn't at a nightclub. It was at a motel out by the Fairfax line.
I ate, and spoke to Will some about school coming up. He was looking forward to it. The summer had been only okay for him. He worked at a bike repair shop, and made decent money. Bu he'd broken up with his girlfriend, Lisa, and was a little down.
I went to bed early. Mel got in at eleven, and slipped int bed soon after. No shower. But she shied away some when I tried to snuggle. I was doing it to see what she'd do. I knew she'd been cheating - just not with whom. I was not about to try to have sex with her.
I got up early the next day and biked to work again. I showered up there, and started right in. It was a busy morning. At one, I got a call from the DNA lab. The emailed me a report. But over the phone the tech told me that the Will samples belonged to my nephew.
I almost fainted. I had one sibling - Robert. He was three years older than I. All through my childhood, he'd helped me out. He and I were about the same size - 6' and medium build. He was a good athlete in school, and played basketball at his university. He wasn't a star, but he played.
He got out of school and went right into selling real estate. He did well, and started his own firm. He married Glenda Wilson, his college sweetheart, and they had three children. All three were out of college and working.
About four years ago Melissa went to work for his firm. She had been doing substitute teaching until then. I made good money, and she didn't have to work. But Will was old enough to see to himself after school, and she wanted something more interesting. That's what she said, anyway.
At this time, I had absolutely no faith in anything she said.
After I got the DNA news, I sat and pondered what could have happened. All three of my kids had birthdays in late September. I calculated back from than and would up at about Christmas. When Mel and I decided to have a family, she went off the pill. We tried for a couple of months before the last Christmas before Brad came along. There was a big family gathering at Christmas, as usual, and Rob and his family were there. And I recalled that after Christmas for that year and many after that, Mel and her friend Linda Green went off on a week long 'meditation retreat.' They'd leave on Boxing Day and return on New Years'. Some years they stayed an extra week. The retreat was supposed to have been at a facility up in the West Virginia mountains.
When Brad came along, Mel did not go on the retreat the next year. But the year after, she did. Mary came along that next September.
When Mary was nursing, no retreat. But when she was fifteen months, Mel and Linda went again. Will came along the next September.
The retreats continued for a number of years. I thought about it. They stopped when Mel went to work for Rob.
Linda Green had been Mel's best buddy since college. She had taken a position with Rob's new firm when he started it. So, the three of them worked together, and had for some time.
That weekend was when we took Will back to college. I rented a van and we had a nice two hour drive on Saturday. We ate lunch with Will, and helped him move into an apartment he was sharing with his good friend Mike Watson. After that, Mel and I waved goodbye and drove off.
I confess that, when it was only the two of us, I went tight lipped. Eventually Mel noticed.
She said, "What? You haven't said two words to me." She looked worried.
"I have a lot on my mind, Mel. A lot. Not something I'm going to discuss now."
"So. A mystery. Ted, you aren't lying about the physical, are you?"
"No. Leave it, Mel. That's my best advice for now."
For the rest of the ride - about an hour - we didn't say much. I dropped her off and returned the van. I went to a local bar, had a beer. Thought more.
I couldn't see any way that Mel had done some medical procedure to get pregnant by Rob. That meant only one thing. They'd fucked. Repeatedly, and for years. It was probably Rob that Mel had met at the motel.
As I was sitting in the bar, all at once, I was as angry as I'd ever been. You know how they talk about seeing red. It seemed that way. Everything I looked at had a strange tint to it. I frightened the bar tender, a young woman. I tossed a ten on the bar and walked out. I had a couple of friends that I'd play cards and tennis with. Ned Barth was my closest buddy. I drove over to his house. He and Mel had never gotten along well. His wife Sadie was not close with Mel at all. Their kids were also gone to school. So, when I rang the bell, Sadie answered. Ned was right there.
