Victoria Marshall had perfected the art of compartmentalization over the past five years of marriage. She had learned to tuck away her deepest pain behind a smile, to swallow her yearning when friends announced pregnancies, and to redirect conversations away from the topic that haunted her dreams. Every month, she endured the cruel hope that maybe this time would be different, followed by the familiar crushing disappointment that reminded her of what she already knew but couldn’t bear to accept.
The diagnosis had come three years into their marriage, delivered with clinical detachment by Dr. Peterson, her gynecologist. “Premature ovarian failure,” he had said, the words falling like stones into still water. “Your hormone levels indicate that your ovaries have stopped functioning normally. Natural conception is highly unlikely.”
Vic had sat in that sterile office, nodding as if she understood, asking the right questions about treatment options and statistics. But inside, something fundamental had broken. The dreams she had carried since childhood—of feeling life growing within her, of seeing Arthur’s eyes reflected in their child’s face, of the family photos that would never exist—all of it crumbled in the space between one heartbeat and the next.