My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat.
“Then tell me now,” I said.
Diane stepped forward fast. She grabbed Ben’s shoulder.
“Ben,” she said. “Ben, she won’t understand—”
“No, Mom.” He shook her hand off. He didn’t look away from me. “She has to know. She should have known six years ago. She has to know.”
He took a breath. A long, shaking breath.
“Claire,” he said. “I can’t have children.”
The words didn’t make sense. They just hung in the air.
“What?”
“I’ve known since I was nineteen. I had cancer. Testicular cancer, my sophomore year of college. They caught it early, and I did the chemo, and I beat it. But afterward, the doctor ran tests. And he said…” His voice broke. “He said the chemo had wiped everything out. He said I would never be able to father a child. Not naturally. Not ever.”
