Another file. Another woman. Another set of test results saying the same damn thing. Why was he always the one who had to deliver the news?

No, that was unfair. Every day all the doctors on staff drew straws, picked cards, played whatever games of chance they could recall so that this day it would not be their turn. Eventually it was, though. Eventually they all had to do it.

He picked up the folder and glanced at her name. ‘Charity’. The next in the seeming unending line of women who wanted to know what had happened. Who wanted to know why their bodies weren’t acting like women’s bodies anymore.

Someone had thought they’d be grateful. Grateful to be relieved of a messy burden. Grateful that science could now do neatly and antiseptically what nature had done noisily and messily.

Someone had been very wrong.

He glanced at the name again. ‘Charity’. Perhaps he would do this woman a bit of charity and tell her something other than the old cover story, something more honest than ‘I don’t know’.