They wrote letters when he did a semester abroad. Handwritten pages filled with longing.
Two years later, they married. It was a small backyard wedding, intimate and perfect.
They were happy. They built a life from scratch—rented apartments, cheap furniture, Oliver’s first startup business. Every milestone felt earned.
First car, first house, first trip to Europe. They grew up together.
On their tenth anniversary, Valerie’s mother asked the question that had been hanging in the air: “When are you two going to give me grandkids?”
“We’re too busy for that right now,” Oliver had laughed, but later that night, the silence in their large, pristine home felt heavy.
Valerie had been worrying about it for years. She knew they hadn’t been using protection for a long time. Why hadn’t it happened?
They started the doctors’ visits. Specialists, tests, charts. They were told they were both healthy. “Unexplained infertility,” the doctors called it. A medical shrug.
It was exhausting. The hope, the disappointment, the monthly cycle of grief.
Eventually, they stopped talking about it. It was too painful. They focused on their careers and pretended they were content being a power couple with no dependents.
