For 10 years, I lived with the certainty that I was sterile. I divorced the love of my life because she was pregnant with quadruplets. I called her a traitor

Frank slammed on the brakes, pulling abruptly to the curb, startling a passing taxi.

Marcus rolled down the window. The freezing wind rushed in, biting at his face, carrying the scent of exhaust and snow. The girls jumped, startled. The one who seemed to be the leader stepped forward, shielding her three sisters with her small body. She held a cardboard sign that read: God Bless. Anything Helps.

“Sir?” the little girl asked. Her voice… it had the same musical lilt he had spent ten years trying to drown out with scotch and work.

Marcus took off his designer sunglasses, his hands trembling. He searched their faces for a lie, for a trick. But biology doesn’t lie.

Ten years ago. The memory hit him like a physical blow.

He had thrown Elena out of their penthouse. He had dragged her out of his life, accusing her of the ultimate betrayal. The fertility specialists—the best in the country—had told him he was sterile. A zero percent chance of conception. So when Elena had come to him, glowing, holding a sonogram that showed four heartbeats, he saw it not as a miracle, but as proof of her infidelity.

“Get out!” he had screamed, throwing her clothes onto the landing. “I never want to see you or your bastards again! You are a liar and a cheat!”

She had left weeping, swearing she had never touched another man. She left with nothing but the clothes on her back, because the prenuptial agreement was ironclad against adultery.

And now, four pairs of green eyes—his eyes—were staring at him from a frozen sidewalk in Chicago.