PART 2 — THE SECRET DIEGO NEVER EXPECTED ME TO FIND
For several seconds, I simply stared at Dr. Serrano.
I understood every word he had said individually, but together they made no sense.
“A surgical procedure?” I whispered. “That’s impossible. I’ve never had surgery.”
Álvaro glanced toward the nurse, then back at the ultrasound screen.
“That’s why I want to be absolutely certain before I tell you anything else.”
My hands began trembling beneath the paper gown.
“What kind of procedure?”
He hesitated.
That hesitation frightened me more than any answer could have.
“Please,” I said. “Just tell me.”
Álvaro pulled his chair closer.
“Lucía, what I’m seeing suggests that something was done to your reproductive system several years ago. There appears to be scar tissue consistent with an intervention.”
My mouth went dry.
“But I would know if someone operated on me.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “Normally, you would.”
Normally.
That word echoed inside my head.
I looked again at the gray shapes on the screen, desperately hoping they would suddenly become meaningless shadows.
“When would this have happened?”
“I can’t tell from an ultrasound alone. We need imaging, blood work, and your previous medical records.”
“My previous records are at Diego’s clinic.”
Álvaro’s expression changed immediately.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
And somehow that frightened me even more.
“Your husband has your medical records?”
“Yes.”
“Has he been responsible for your examinations?”
“Sometimes.”
That was when memories began slipping into my mind.
Appointments I barely remembered.
Medication Diego had given me after I complained about pelvic pain.
A procedure five years earlier that he had described as “just a small diagnostic examination.”
I remembered waking afterward feeling dizzy.
I remembered asking why my abdomen hurt.
Diego had kissed my forehead and told me I had reacted badly to the sedative.
My stomach twisted.
“Five years ago,” I said suddenly.
Álvaro leaned forward.
“What happened five years ago?”
I told him.
Every detail I could remember.
Diego had said he wanted to perform a minor examination because we had been struggling to conceive.
He had arranged everything at his clinic after hours.
No receptionist.
No waiting room.
Only Diego and a nurse I had never met before.
He told me sedation would make the procedure easier.
When I woke up, he was beside me.
Everything was already finished.
At the time, I had trusted him completely.
Álvaro listened without interrupting.
When I finished, his face had gone pale.
“Did you sign consent forms?”
“I think so.”
“What did they say?”
“I don’t know. Diego handed me several pages and told me they were standard.”
The nurse standing beside the ultrasound machine looked down.
Nobody spoke.
Then Álvaro asked another question.
“Did you and your husband continue trying to have children afterward?”
My chest tightened.
“For years.”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“We tried everything. Or at least I thought we did. Diego kept saying the problem was probably stress. He told me some women simply couldn’t get pregnant even when doctors couldn’t explain why.”
Álvaro slowly removed his glasses.
“Lucía…”
I already knew I didn’t want to hear the rest.
But I forced myself to ask.
“Could whatever you’re seeing explain why I never became pregnant?”
He looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
One word.
That was all it took.
The room seemed to tilt.
I remembered every pregnancy test I had taken.
Every month I had cried alone in the bathroom.
Every time Diego wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “Maybe next month.”
I remembered apologizing to him.
I had actually apologized.
Because I believed my body had failed us.
“Are you saying Diego might have done something to me?”
“I’m saying we need evidence before making any accusation,” Álvaro replied carefully. “But I’m also saying that what I’m seeing requires investigation.”
He printed several ultrasound images and placed them into a folder.
“I want you to have additional tests at the hospital today.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
Then his voice became noticeably quieter.
“And I strongly recommend that you do not tell your husband anything yet.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because if your previous records are important, we need to make sure they still exist exactly as they are.”
The meaning of his words hit me slowly.
“You think he might change them.”
“I’m not saying that.”
But his eyes said enough.
I got dressed with shaking hands.
My phone was lying inside my handbag.
When I turned it on, I saw three messages from Diego.
The first said:
How did the appointment go?
The second arrived six minutes later:
Everything okay?
The third made the hairs rise on my arms.
Call me as soon as you leave.
I stared at those words.
Diego had always been attentive.
Until that moment, I had considered it loving.
Now it felt like surveillance.
I typed:
Everything’s fine. Routine checkup.
My finger hovered over the send button.
Then I pressed it.
His reply came almost immediately.
Good. Come home early tonight. I’ll cook.
For the first time in fourteen years of marriage, reading a loving message from my husband made me afraid.
Dr. Serrano arranged the hospital tests personally.
By late afternoon, I had undergone another ultrasound and an MRI.
Nobody told me much.
Technicians exchanged careful looks.
Doctors asked the same questions repeatedly.
Previous pregnancies?
None.
Miscarriages?
None.
Surgeries?
None that I knew of.
Consent for sterilization?
I nearly stopped breathing.
“No.”
The doctor asking the questions looked at me.
“Never?”
“Never.”
He nodded and wrote something down.
At seven that evening, Álvaro returned.
He closed the consultation-room door behind him.
This time he was carrying an envelope.
He sat across from me.
“We have preliminary confirmation.”
My heart began pounding.
“Confirmation of what?”
He placed one of the scans on the illuminated panel.
“I can’t determine exactly how it was documented without the surgical records, but the evidence strongly suggests that your fallopian tubes were intentionally blocked.”
I stared at him.
My ears started ringing.
“What does that mean?”
He paused.
“It means that becoming pregnant naturally would have been extremely unlikely.”
I felt something inside me break.
Not loudly.
Quietly.
Like glass cracking beneath water.
Five years.
Five years of trying.
Five years of blaming myself.
Five years of Diego holding me while I cried.
“Could it have happened accidentally?”
Álvaro did not answer immediately.
“That is one of the questions the records may answer.”
I stood up so quickly that the chair scraped across the floor.
“I need those records.”
“Yes.”
“They’re at Diego’s clinic.”
“Yes.”
“And if he knows I’m looking—”
“That’s why I told you not to confront him yet.”
I walked toward the window.
Madrid glowed beneath the evening sky.
People moved along the pavement below as though nothing had happened.
Cars stopped at traffic lights.
Couples walked home carrying groceries.
The entire world continued normally while mine had just split in two.
Then something occurred to me.
“There might be another copy.”
Álvaro looked up.
“Where?”
“The clinic used to keep paper archives before Diego changed systems.”
“Can you access them?”
I thought about Marta, the clinic administrator.
She had worked there since before Diego opened the practice.
She had attended our wedding.
Every Christmas she sent me a bottle of wine.
“If anyone can, Marta can.”
Álvaro stood.
“Then be careful.”
I left the hospital at 8:15 p.m.
Instead of going home, I drove toward Salamanca.
Diego’s clinic closed at eight.
When I arrived, the lights in reception were still on.
Marta was behind the desk packing her handbag.
She looked surprised when she saw me.
“Lucía? What are you doing here?”
“I need a favor.”
Something in my voice made her stop smiling.
“What happened?”
“I need the file from the procedure Diego performed on me five years ago.”
Marta stared at me.
Her face changed instantly.
It was subtle.
But unmistakable.
She knew.
“What procedure?” she asked too quickly.
“Marta.”
She looked away.
My heartbeat became thunder.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“No, I—”
“Please.”
Her eyes filled with fear.
Not confusion.
Fear.
She slowly sat down.
“Lucía, you should go home.”
“Why?”
“Because Diego will be here soon.”
My entire body went cold.
“He told me he was already home.”
Marta looked toward the glass entrance doors.
Then she whispered something that made every remaining piece of trust inside me disappear.
“He called me twenty minutes ago. He said if you came here asking about your old medical records, I was not to give you anything.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“How did he know I would come?”
Marta shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then we heard a car door slam outside.
Marta’s face turned white.
She stood abruptly and hurried toward the filing room.
“Come with me.”
“What are you doing?”
She grabbed my wrist.
“Lucía, there’s something you need to see before he gets inside.”
She unlocked a metal cabinet at the back of the clinic and pulled out a thick folder.
My name was written across the front.
LUCÍA MARTÍN LÓPEZ.
My hands shook as she gave it to me.
“Page seventeen,” she whispered.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside.
I opened the folder.
Page twelve.
Fourteen.
Sixteen.
Then seventeen.
At the top was the date from five years earlier.
Below it was Diego’s signature.
And beneath a paragraph filled with medical language was another signature.
Mine.
Except it wasn’t mine.
I stared at it.
Someone had signed my name.
Then I read the procedure listed beside it.
My vision blurred.
Behind us, the clinic door opened.
Diego’s voice echoed through reception.
“Marta?”
She looked at me in terror.
Then he called my name.
“Lucía?”
And suddenly, I understood something even worse.
Diego wasn’t surprised that I was there.
He had been expecting me……..
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
