"I`ve reviewed your medical file, Mrs. Evered. Everything looked normal until the ultrasound."

　　"What did you find?" I ask nervously, Fred`s hand squeezing my shoulder only making me more nervous.

　　The doctor- I don`t remember his name, he`s one in a string of many OBGYNs and fertility specialists- sinks into his chair with a heavy sigh, the kind that seems to be trying to decide the best way to approach what will almost certainly be bad news. "There is& a lot of scar tissue in your uterus, enough that& the chances of you successfully carrying a pregnancy are slim at best."

　　"But you can fix it," Fred states more than asks, though, honestly, demands more than states.

　　"No," the doctor shakes his head. "No, I`m sorry. The scar tissue is there to stay. It`s too extensive. We don`t have the technology to fix it right now without running a high risk of life threatening complications. Maybe& maybe in another five or ten years that procedure will be developed, and we can reevaluate the options then."

　　"Why does she have scar tissue!?" Fred asks, his voice raising. I feel myself startle and shrink into the chair of the consultation room, a fully formed fear rooting in my gut.

　　The doctor looks at me, my eyes meeting his only temporarily as the shame and the horrible, repressed memories fight to surface. I`m just waiting for him to share my secret, the one I`ve kept from Fred- from everyone- for over a decade. The painful silence is more pregnant than it seems I`ll ever be. "I can only speculate," the doctor eventually says, and I feel almost lightheaded despite the relief being very slight and temporary.

　　"Then speculate!"

　　Another glance at me before the doctor speaks again. "It could be& from an old trauma, uh, from an old procedure, anything that can cause damage to-"

　　"Like what?!"

　　"I really don`t know," the doctor shakes his head and returns to the images in my file to look at them with a false frown of concentration. I`m grateful to him for that determined grace, but I also know that this is far from over. Fred isn`t going to let this one go. He`s invested too deeply in the answers to accept "I don`t know". If the doctor doesn`t cave, I`ll have to be the one to tell him. My stomach clenches again. I feel nauseous.

　　"Thank you for your time, doctor," I say quietly, and stand as though to leave, hoping to save this confrontation for a time when Fred has cooled off a little.

　　"What sorts of things can cause that kind of scar tissue?!" Fred is now just shy of shouting, and the doctor looks up grudgingly from my file to glance my direction and then at Fred again.

　　"I would like to speak with my patient in private, please."

　　"No! Whatever you need to say, you can say to both of us! I`m her husband! If something is wrong- If something is preventing us from having a baby, I have a right to know these things too!"

　　"I just have a few things to ask her. It won`t take long. Please excuse us, sir."

　　"NO! I-!"

　　"Fred, don`t shout. He`s trying to do his job. Doctor& could you excuse us?" The doctor raises an eyebrow at me but walks out without protest and shuts the door behind him.

　　"Lottie, what is going on?!"

　　"Fred& could you please sit down?"

　　He huffs angrily into his seat and looks up with annoyance and anger- not a good place to start. This conversation is going to be a disaster. "Well!?"

　　"Fred&. I& I had a procedure done- It was very traumatic and I-I didn`t think it would even matter-"

　　"What sort of procedure?! Are you telling me that you knew about this the whole time?! All these years and all this money, and you had the answer all along!?"

　　"No, Fred! It wasn`t like that!"

　　"When did this happen?!"

　　"Wh-what do you-?

　　"This procedure` you had! Did it happen before or after we met?"The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

　　"Before! Way before. I was young&. Very young- sixteen maybe?"

　　"And just what exactly was this procedure?!"

　　"Fred&. Please don`t ask me that."

　　"I THINK I HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!"

　　I swallow, my stomach so hollowed out now that the blood in my face is rushing to fill the void and there aren`t any tears available for me to cry. "It was statutory rape. It had been going on for a long time and he finally& he finally got me pregnant. Mother made me get rid of it even though, at the time, it was still illegal. Something went horribly wrong, but I don`t know what exactly. What I do know is, I should have died from the blood loss alone."

　　"An abortion? You`ve been pregnant before?!"

　　"It wasn`t by choice! I didn`t-!"

　　"Who? Who did that to you?"

　　I swallow, a single tear finally finding its way to the surface. "Now that, I`ll take to my grave."

　　"Who, Lottie!?"

　　"You can`t ask me that, Fred. You can`t ask me that."

　　"You`re protecting him?!"

　　"No. I`m protecting myself. I-I can`t, Fred. I can`t tell you. I can`t even admit it to myself."

　　He starts raging, berating me, and my tears fall ever more steadily. I only catch phrases of his tirade. "You should have told me! & What did you think was going to happen?! & It`s all your fault!" I know he just feels hurt, feels betrayed, by this revelation. "& You deserve this! & You could have died?! & What did you think was going to happen?!" I know he doesn`t truly understand what I went through or mean what he`s saying. "& You didn`t think to tell me?! & You deserve this!! & This is all your fault!!" And despite the guilt and the shame and the depression and grief&. "How could you do this to me, Lottie?!" I still have room left in my heart to hate him for it.

　　I wake up sobbing. It has been& many years since I`ve had that particular nightmare- more of a memory, really. Over forty years later, I still don`t really believe what I told Fred that day. I do believe that I should have died fifty-four years ago, but the rest of it? Some part of me knows that, logically, it had to have happened. But the rest of me&. It`s interesting how people separate pieces of themselves, cordoning off the parts that are too ugly to reconcile.

　　It would have been merciful to die on that table.

　　Sigh&.

　　"Well, don`t you agree?!"

　　***

　　"Hello?"

　　"Hello, Officer Milton."

　　"Lottie! This is unexpected. It`s been a while! How are things going? Is everything going well?"

　　"Yes. Thank you."

　　"No emergencies, I trust? Boyd and I have been keeping tabs on the neighborhood. It`s been& quiet! That`s a nice change of pace, right? It`s made our patrol a lot easier. We`re getting lazy over here. Ha, ha!"

　　"Yeah&. Yeah, hey, listen, not an emergency, but I sort of found a body."

　　"Whoa. Whoa, wait. Hold on.... A body?!"

　　"Yeah. Well, sort of. I did say sort of`, right?"

　　"Uh, yeah, you did&. What do you mean sort of`?"

　　"Well, I am quite sure that the body was a fetus. And I`m also quite sure that it died nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, the note said 1875, but, um&. It was under the floor&. In a tin box&. Oh. And it was murdered."

　　"M-murdered?! I thought you said it was a fetus!"

　　"I did. The baby`s mother left a note with the body. It was murder. She named the murderer too, so&. Yup."

　　"... You know, I`m not even sure which department I should call to handle this sort of case&. I think it`s pretty safe to say that this is a cold case. One hundred and fifty years ago? I`m almost wondering if this is the sort of case for, like, a history channel or& something?"

　　"Yeah. Actually, a history-type special would make sense. The mother also left some diaries. I`ve read them."

　　"Like, with the baby?"

　　"Oh. No. No, the diaries weren`t with the body. I found those in a wall during demolition several months ago, but I figured I could read through them before reporting the find. It tells the story of what happened leading up to the murder."

　　"Well hot dang! I wanna see! Can we come over, Lottie? I`m awfully curious."

　　"Sure. You can help me rip out the rest of the floorboards, make sure there aren`t any other bodies to find down there."

　　"You know, this is the sort of thing I`d expect to hear about in a ghost story, Lottie! Old mansion, diaries in the walls, bodies in the floors&. Yeesh! Creepy! I don`t suppose that you`ve been experiencing strange things, have you?"

　　"Strange in what way?"

　　"Oh, the classic haunting things, you know? Like, noises you can`t explain, voices, things moving in the corners of your eyes that aren`t there when you look straight at them, unexplained illnesses, things not being where you left them, things breaking, uh&. I don`t know."

　　"...."

　　"Hello? Lottie? Are you there? Did I lose you? Lottie? Aw, man, I think I lost her&. Still connected though&. Lottie?"

　　"I`m here."

　　"Woo, I think we might have broken up there for a minute."

　　"Yeah. Yeah, you can come over."

　　"We`ll see you soon then. Be there in a few minutes."

　　End Call.

　　Sigh&. Oh, Lottie&. Lottie&. Creak&. Sigh&.