Who Will Grow Old With Me?

Nathaniel Scott has been married to Jessica Sullivan for three years, and they have been trying for a baby ever since the wedding. When he goes to the hospital for a check-up, the doctor gives him news he cannot believe: he has had a vasectomy, performed three months ago, and Jessica signed the consent form herself. The same visit reveals that Jessica has just come in for a prenatal checkup, accompanied by York Lawrence, the man who once rescued her.

Nathaniel remembers everything: the accident in which Jessica pushed him clear, the months she spent with York while her memory was gone, the tattoo over her heart, the surgery she told him was for his appendix. Outside their door he hears her on the phone, speaking of the baby, of York as its father, and of a plan he was never meant to learn.

He walks away and files to change his name to Ash, effective in seven business days. Jessica finds him, frantic and clinging, unaware that the life she is protecting has already begun to slip from her hands.