"I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never told you. I'm sorry I'm only telling this to your answering machine. I'm sorry I loved you, lied to you, hated you -- I'm sorry you probably feel the way I do now, stomach churning with dead butterflies, mouth tasting like day old socks as you want for the test results.
"By now you probably know me, or who I used to be, who I really am. I tried so hard, to love you, to be like all the other husbands. To be like all the other men. But I couldn't do it. Biology betrayed me. Sooner or later, we betray or dreams. Or they, us. So I'm sorry. I know it can't make a difference, that my words can't save you, can't mend this. We passed the time for words the first time we stopped using condoms.
"I should have told you something. Dear God, I should have said something. Even a hint, or a word or two in jest. There's at least something I could have said, about me, about you. That's all the stories are. Two people, and what happens after. Three, if they're lucky, and -- sorry, a bad joke. They still slip out of me, like verbal diarrhoea. Even now. Maybe especially now. We we don't laugh, we've lost. Doesn't matter what we're fighting, what demons we face: if we can't laugh, we've lost against anything.
"We're all going to die, my lo - dear. So we can't take it all too seriously. But even so, I'm sorry. Right now, the doctors are likely performing tests on you, using needles and machines and invisible robots in your blood to find out if you'll live or die. Not even they no for sure. I'd offer up something, a prayer maybe, but the words keep getting stuck in my throat.
"You loved me. I loved you. We made love, we had sex, we did all the things people do when they're infatuated, were together long enough that it was more than just that. Seven years, and you found out. Took the test. Never understood why I was horrified, why I left. I guess - I guess you know now.
"I thought, after that long, it would never happen. It was radiation, you see. I figured I had to be infertile. Unless, you know, you knocked someone up on the side. But they must have been like me, too, so I can still be angry with you. We married, after all. There's more to that than love. And we both had secrets. You had your ex you sometimes met for coffee, for a thrill in your life. I used to fly over the city, fight people in silly costumes. Think I was saving the world.
"I guess, then, mine was bigger. If the baby is like me, they can probably figure that out. Tell you if you can survive, if you'll die or not. It's why we don't have kids, why so few come to term. I guess this is goodbye, then. It has to be something.
"I almost wish your machine could record this entire message."
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