Two Frozen Embryos, One Divorce

Chapter 3

That night, Julian didn't explain himself any further.

He folded the clothes like he always did, warmed me a glass of milk, and crouched by the bed before we went to sleep to massage my calves.

"Did you walk too much again today?"

I lowered my head and looked at him.

He looked up and smiled.

"Still mad at me?"

I didn't answer.

His hand held my ankle, his palm warm against my skin.

"Okay. I give up."

"We'll have a child this year."

I froze for a moment.

Julian got up, climbed into bed, and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"Wasn't this what you always wanted?"

"This time, I won't make you wait anymore."

I turned around to look at him.

"Really?"

"Really."

He lowered his head and gently brushed the tip of my nose with his.

"After we deal with everything these next few days, we'll go get checked again."

"We'll clear out the study too."

Hearing those words, I felt the tight knot inside me finally loosen a little.

The next morning, I was looking through travel photos on the family tablet.

The shared album suddenly showed a notification:

"On This Day, 7 Years Ago."

The video started playing automatically.

Julian in the video looked much younger than he did now.

He was sitting in a hospital hallway, holding a lab report in his hand.

Off-camera, Madeline asked with a laugh, "If there are two of them, how are we going to name them?"

He lowered his head and stared at the report for a long time.

"One will be called Peanut, and the other will be Bean."

"Who will they take after?"

"Peanut will take after you."

After saying that, he looked up at the camera and smiled.

"Bean better take after me. That way, we won't end up with two kids as hard to handle as you."

The video was only a little over 20 seconds long.

I watched it twice.

Last year, a friend had asked Julian to help come up with a nickname for their child.

He had laughed and refused.

"Don't ask me. I'm terrible at coming up with names like that."

So he wasn't incapable of it.

Back then, he had even seriously imagined what his future child would be like and who they would resemble.

But when it came to me, the words he said most often were only two.

Not yet.

The bathroom door opened.

Julian walked out, drying his hair with a towel.

When he saw the tablet, his footsteps stopped.

"How did you find that?"

"The system pushed it automatically."

I paused the video at the moment when he had been smiling the brightest.

"Peanut. Bean."

He walked over and turned off the screen.

"That was years ago."

"They were just names I came up with casually."

"Didn't you say yesterday that we'd have a child this year?"

"Yes."

"Then what about those two names?"

His hand was still resting on the tablet.

He didn't move it away.

I waited a few seconds.

"Julian."

He looked up at me, his tone already showing some impatience.

"This isn't the same thing."

"How is it different?"

"Anna, isn't it enough that I'm willing to have a child with you?"

I didn't say anything.

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"I'm already moving forward."

"The house is ours. The life we have is ours. Our future child will be ours too."

"Why do you insist on holding on to something from the past?"

"Because you're the one who never truly let go."

"Me? I haven't let go of Madeline?"

He gave a quiet laugh.

"When she got married, did I try to stop her? When she started dating someone else, did I interfere?"

"I've been divorced from her for 7 years. Other than this, what else is there?"

I looked at him.

"So it's not that you can't let go of her."

"Then what is it that you can't let go of?"

Julian opened his mouth.

But in the end, he only placed the tablet face down on the table.

"Forget it."

"No matter what I say now, you'll think I'm the one with the problem."

After saying that, he turned around and went to change his clothes.

The countdown in the upper-right corner showed only 23 hours remaining.