PART 2 — TWO HEARTBEATS, THREE LIES
Dr. Evans’s words silenced the entire examination room.
Derek’s arrogant expression did not disappear immediately. He still stood near the open door with one hand in his coat pocket, wearing the same confident look he had worn at the coffee shop.
Jessica remained behind him, her arms folded across her chest.
“Go ahead,” Derek said. “Show me how far along she is.”
Dr. Evans turned back toward the monitor.
“Come closer.”
Derek walked toward the examination table. Jessica followed him, but the doctor raised one hand.
“I asked Derek to come closer.”
Jessica stopped.
Her lips tightened, but she said nothing.
Dr. Evans pointed at the flickering shape on the screen.
“This is the baby’s head. Here is the spine. And this movement here is the heartbeat.”
Derek stared at the monitor.
For one brief moment, something changed in his face.
He was looking at his child.
Even after everything he had done to me, I recognized the wonder in his eyes. It was the same expression he had worn years earlier when we talked about having children someday.
But then he remembered that Jessica was standing behind him.
His face hardened again.
“How many weeks?” he demanded.
Dr. Evans did not answer immediately.
Instead, she moved the ultrasound wand slightly.
A second fluttering shape appeared beside the first.
Then another rapid heartbeat filled the room.
Derek’s mouth fell open.
I stopped breathing.
Dr. Evans looked at me gently.
“Sarah, you aren’t carrying one baby.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the examination table.
“What are you saying?”
“You’re carrying twins.”
The room seemed to tilt around me.
Twins.
Two babies.
Two tiny heartbeats were echoing through the machine, overlapping each other like a secret song meant only for me.
I covered my mouth as fresh tears filled my eyes.
“Are they both okay?”
“At this moment, both babies appear healthy,” Dr. Evans assured me. “Their heart rates are strong, and their measurements are appropriate.”
A broken laugh escaped me.
For weeks, I had been terrified that my baby would enter the world unwanted by its father.
Now there were two.
Two innocent children Derek had rejected before he even knew they existed.
Derek stared at the monitor.
“Twins don’t prove anything.”
Dr. Evans slowly turned her stool toward him.
“No, but their measurements prove something extremely important.”
She selected an image and placed two markers across the first baby’s body.
Numbers appeared in the corner of the screen.
Then she measured the second baby.
“The twins are measuring approximately eleven weeks and four days.”
Derek blinked.
Jessica unfolded her arms.
“That can’t be right,” she said quickly.
Dr. Evans looked at her.
“And why can’t it be right?”
Jessica’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
Derek saw it too.
He turned toward her. “What does she mean?”
Jessica recovered quickly. “Nothing. I’m saying ultrasound dates can be wrong.”
“They can vary by several days,” Dr. Evans replied. “Not by an entire month.”
She looked back at Derek.
“You said your vasectomy was performed two months ago.”
“Yes.”
“This pregnancy began before your procedure.”
Derek stared at the numbers on the monitor.
“No.”
“It did.”
“No,” he repeated, louder this time. “Sarah told you what date to put into that machine.”
Dr. Evans’s expression became cold.
“That is not how an ultrasound works.”
“You don’t know what she’s capable of.”
I felt something inside me finally snap.
For weeks, I had cried.
I had begged him to believe me.
I had explained the follow-up testing, the waiting period, and every warning his surgeon had given us.
But Derek had chosen the version of the story that allowed him to move into Jessica’s apartment without looking like the cheating husband he truly was.
Now the truth was beating on a screen directly in front of him, and he was still trying to turn me into a liar.
“You never believed I cheated,” I said.
Derek looked at me.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I pulled the paper sheet higher over my legs and forced myself to sit straighter.
“You never actually believed this baby belonged to another man. You just needed an excuse to leave.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
I pointed toward Jessica.
“You already had a suitcase packed. You already had somewhere to stay. You announced that you were moving in with her on the same night I told you I was pregnant.”
Jessica stepped forward.
“Derek was devastated.”
I looked directly at her.
“He was prepared.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You humiliated him.”
“No. He humiliated himself.”
Derek slammed his palm against the counter.
“Enough!”
Dr. Evans immediately stood.
“You need to lower your voice. This is a medical facility.”
Derek ignored her.
He looked at me with hatred burning in his eyes.
“Even if the dates match, that doesn’t prove I’m the father.”
My tears stopped.
Not because his words no longer hurt.
Because I finally understood that nothing would ever be enough for him.
He could watch our children’s hearts beating.
He could be shown the exact conception window.
He could hear a doctor explain that his vasectomy had happened afterward.
And he would still accuse me because admitting the truth would mean admitting what kind of man he was.
Dr. Evans removed her gloves.
“Did you complete your post-vasectomy semen analysis?”
Derek hesitated.
Jessica looked at him.
“Your what?”
“The follow-up tests,” I said quietly. “The tests I reminded him about.”
Dr. Evans waited.
Derek looked away.
“I was busy.”
“That isn’t an answer,” the doctor said.
“I didn’t go.”
Jessica’s arms fell to her sides.
“You told me the procedure had already worked.”
Derek turned sharply. “This isn’t your concern.”
“You told me you were sterile.”
The words hung in the room.
Dr. Evans glanced at me, but I was already looking at Jessica.
Something in Jessica’s voice had changed.
This was no longer a mistress defending the man she had stolen.
She sounded frightened.
“Why would it matter to you whether he was sterile?” I asked.
Jessica’s face went pale.
Derek stepped between us.
“She meant because of the divorce.”
“No,” I said. “She didn’t.”
Jessica grabbed Derek’s arm.
“We should leave.”
He pulled away from her.
“Not until this doctor admits she can’t prove anything.”
Dr. Evans’s voice remained calm.
“I cannot establish paternity through an ultrasound. But I can tell you that these babies were conceived before your vasectomy. I can also tell you that a vasectomy is not considered effective until follow-up testing confirms there are no sperm remaining.”
She looked at me.
“Sarah told you the truth.”
Derek’s face turned red.
I waited for him to apologize.
Some foolish, wounded part of me still expected it.
Eight years of marriage made a person expect impossible things.
He did not apologize.
Instead, he pointed at the monitor.
“If they’re mine, I’ll deal with it after a DNA test.”
Deal with it.
That was how he described his children.
Not love them.
Not protect them.
Deal with them.
I reached for my dress.
“Get out.”
Derek stared at me.
“What did you say?”
“I said get out of this room.”
“This concerns me.”
“No. You made your decision when you left our house and moved in with your mistress.”
“I’m still your husband.”
“Only on paper.”
Jessica grabbed his sleeve again.
“Derek, let’s go.”
He turned toward her.
“Why are you so desperate to leave?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re acting strange.”
“I don’t like hospitals.”
“You came here willingly.”
Jessica opened her mouth, but no words came out.
Derek’s eyes narrowed.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She looked toward the door.
That was when I noticed the leather purse hanging from her shoulder.
She was gripping its strap so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
Derek noticed it too.
He reached for the purse.
Jessica jerked backward.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I wasn’t touching you.”
“You were trying to take my bag.”
“Why are you protecting it?”
“I’m not protecting anything.”
Derek gave a bitter laugh.
“You dragged me into this room because you wanted to watch Sarah get exposed. Now that she hasn’t, you suddenly want to run away?”
“I said we should leave.”
“And I asked you why.”
Jessica stepped backward.
Her heel caught against the leg of a chair.
She lost her balance.
The purse slipped from her shoulder and struck the floor.
Its contents spilled across the white tiles.
A lipstick rolled beneath the examination table.
A set of car keys landed beside Derek’s shoe.
A bottle of prenatal vitamins spun in a small circle before falling onto its side.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Derek slowly looked down at the bottle.
Then he looked at Jessica.
“Why do you have prenatal vitamins?”
Jessica’s chest rose and fell rapidly.
“They’re my sister’s.”
“You don’t have a sister.”
Her face became completely white.
Derek crouched and reached for the scattered items.
Jessica lunged toward him.
“Leave it!”
But she was too late.
He had already picked up the folded piece of glossy paper that had fallen from the purse.
It was an ultrasound photograph.
Derek unfolded it.
I could not see the image from where I was sitting, but I saw the printed information along the top.
Jessica Monroe.
Patient identification number.
Examination date.
Gestational age: ten weeks, two days.
Derek’s hands began to shake.
“You’re pregnant?”
Jessica said nothing.
He looked at the date again.
Then at the bottle.
Then at her flat stomach.
“You’re pregnant,” he repeated.
Jessica’s eyes filled with tears.
It was the first time I had ever seen her look anything other than smug.
Derek stood so quickly that the chair behind him toppled over.
“How long have you known?”
“Derek—”
“How long?”
“Three weeks.”
“You’ve known for three weeks and didn’t tell me?”
“I needed time.”
“For what?”
Jessica glanced at me.
It was only for a second, but I saw something in her eyes.
Not shame.
Not guilt.
Fear.
Derek followed her gaze.
“What does Sarah have to do with this?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you looking at her?”
Jessica bent down and began gathering her belongings with trembling hands.
“We’ll talk at home.”
“No. We’ll talk now.”
“This isn’t the place.”
“You came here to destroy my wife’s life, but suddenly this isn’t the place?”
His wife.
The word almost made me laugh.
Only minutes earlier, I had been a liar who had destroyed his family.
Now that Jessica was hiding something, I was his wife again.
Derek held up the ultrasound picture.
“You told me you couldn’t get pregnant.”
Jessica froze.
Dr. Evans moved toward the door.
“This conversation needs to continue somewhere else.”
“No,” Derek said. “I want an answer.”
Jessica rose slowly.
Her face had lost every trace of color.
“I told you I probably couldn’t get pregnant.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
“Derek, please.”
He stepped closer to her.
“Is it mine?”
Jessica’s lips parted.
No answer came.
Derek’s face changed.
The anger disappeared.
In its place came something far more terrified.
“Jessica.”
She looked down.
“Is the baby mine?”
A tear slid down her cheek.
“I don’t know.”
The room became completely silent.
Derek stared at her as if she had spoken in a language he did not understand.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Jessica closed her eyes.
“There was someone else.”
Derek took one step backward.
I watched the same disbelief spread across his face that he had forced me to live with for weeks.
The same humiliation.
The same nausea.
The same feeling of having the floor disappear beneath his feet.
“You cheated on me?”
Jessica’s eyes flew open.
“Don’t you dare use that word.”
“What else would you call it?”
“You were married!”
“You told me you loved me.”
“And you told Sarah the same thing for eight years.”
Derek looked as though she had struck him.
Jessica wiped her cheek angrily.
“You told me your vasectomy had already made you sterile. You promised there was no possibility the baby could be yours.”
“So you decided to hide it?”
“I needed to find out who the father was.”
“Who is the other man?”
Jessica looked toward the ultrasound photograph in his hand.
Then she whispered a name.
“Michael.”
Derek’s entire body stiffened.
“Michael who?”
Jessica did not answer.
He grabbed her wrist.
Dr. Evans stepped forward.
“Let her go immediately.”
Derek released her, but his eyes never left her face.
“Michael who?”
Jessica began crying harder.
I had no sympathy for her.
But I could not look away.
Because Derek’s reaction told me that the name meant something.
Something terrible.
Finally, Jessica whispered:
“Michael Cole.”
Derek stumbled backward.
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
I looked between them.
“Who is Michael Cole?”
Neither of them answered me.
Derek’s eyes filled with a horror I had never seen before.
Then he looked directly at Jessica and said:
“That’s impossible.”
Jessica covered her face.
Derek dropped the ultrasound photograph onto the floor.
“He’s been dead for six months.”
And that was when someone standing outside the examination room began knocking.
Three slow knocks.
Then a man’s voice called through the door.
“Jessica?”
She stopped crying.
Her head snapped toward the sound.
Derek turned toward the door.
The man spoke again.
“Jessica, it’s Michael. We need to tell them the truth.”…………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
