Chương 4
“No.”
My voice surprised even me.
“It isn’t.”
I picked up the phone.
“The complicated part was three years of appointments.”
“The complicated part was watching you look disappointed every month.”
“The complicated part was believing something was wrong with me.”
My fingers shook slightly.
I hated that they did.
I wanted to look completely calm.
But calm was not the same as healed.
Julian lowered his voice.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
That sentence made something inside me go still.
Not because it was comforting.
Because it was exactly the kind of thing people said when they wanted forgiveness without admitting what they had done.
“You never wanted to hurt me?”
He looked down.
“I wanted a child.”
“So did I.”
“I needed a family.”
“So did I.”
The room became quiet.
The difference between us was suddenly obvious.
Julian wanted the result.
I had carried the pain of trying to reach it.
He wanted a family.
I had been fighting for one.
Dr. Hart was still on the phone.
“Sloan,” she said carefully.
I brought the phone closer.
“I’m here.”
“We need you to come in today.”
“Not just for the records.”
“What else?”
Another pause.
“We found something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“I can’t discuss details over the phone.”
“But I think you need to bring someone you trust.”
My eyes moved toward Arthur.
He already knew.
I did not ask how.
Maybe he saw it on my face.
“I’ll drive,” he said.
Julian stood immediately.
“I’m coming too.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
His expression hardened.
“Sloan.”
“No.”
“You need me there.”
I stared at him.
“I needed you there three years ago.”
That hurt him.
I could see it.
And a small, ugly part of me felt satisfied.
I did not like that part.
But it was there.
Arthur picked up his keys.
“Let’s go.”
The drive to Dr. Hart’s office was quiet.
Not peaceful.
Just quiet.
There was a difference.
Arthur kept both hands on the wheel.
He did not ask what I was feeling.
He did not give me advice.
He simply drove.
Halfway there, I noticed a small scratch on the dashboard.
I had never noticed it before.
“What happened there?”
Arthur glanced down.
“Car accident.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Were you hurt?”
He was silent for a moment.
“Yes.”
I waited.
Usually, people filled silence when they were uncomfortable.
Arthur did not.
Finally, he said, “My wife was driving.”
I turned toward him.
“You were married?”
The question came out before I could stop it.
He nodded once.
“She died.”
The words sat heavily in the car.
I looked away.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
That was all.
No story.
No dramatic explanation.
No attempt to make me feel closer to him.
But somehow that made it more painful.
Arthur had lost someone and carried it quietly.
I had lost a marriage and spent weeks trying to convince myself I was fine.
Neither of us was as unaffected as we pretended.
When we arrived, Dr. Hart was waiting.
She took us into a private office.
There were no papers spread across the desk.
No computer screen turned toward us.
That made me nervous.
“What happened?”
Dr. Hart sat down.
“We reviewed the access history for your medical records.”
“And?”
“The changes were made over several months.”
My hands went cold.
“Not once?”
“No.”
She opened a file.
“Several times.”
Arthur leaned forward.
“Why?”
“That is what we are trying to determine.”
I looked at her.
“But you said there was something else.”
She nodded.
“We also found another set of records.”
My heartbeat changed.
“What records?”
She looked directly at me.
“Pregnancy-related records.”
The room went silent.
I stared at her.
“I wasn’t pregnant.”
Dr. Hart did not answer immediately.
That scared me.
“What?”
She turned the file toward me.
“The system shows that your name was connected to a positive pregnancy test eighteen months ago.”
The words made no sense.
I looked at the page.
My name.
My information.
A result.
Positive.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Sloan.”
“No.”
I pushed the paper away.
“I would know.”
Dr. Hart’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
Her voice was gentle.
“You would.”
I looked at Arthur.
He looked confused too.
For the first time since I met him, I saw something close to shock.
“Someone changed the records?” he asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“But she wasn’t told?”
Dr. Hart looked down.
“That appears to be the case.”
The room felt smaller.
A year and a half ago.
A positive test.
A pregnancy I never knew about.
My hand moved toward my stomach without thinking.
Nothing.
No memory.
No moment.
No happiness.
Just a blank space.
“How could that happen?”
Dr. Hart folded her hands.
“There are possibilities.”
“Errors.”
“Unauthorized changes.”
“Miscommunication.”
She stopped.
“But given the other information we found, we have concerns.”
Arthur’s voice became harder.
“Concerns about Julian.”
Dr. Hart did not say yes.
She did not need to.
I sat there trying to connect pieces that refused to fit.
Julian had told me I could not give him a child.
Julian had watched me blame myself.
Julian had left me.
But now there was a record showing something different.
Something he never wanted me to know.
A nurse knocked softly and entered.
“Dr. Hart?”
She looked surprised.
“Yes?”
“There is someone here asking for Sloan Parker.”
My body went tense.
“Who?”
The nurse hesitated.
“A woman.”
Dr. Hart stood.
“What is her name?”
The nurse looked at the clipboard.
“She says her name is Rachel Miller.”
I froze.
I knew that name.
Not because I had met her.
Because I had seen it.
On one of Julian’s old emails.
A vendor contact.
A consultant.
A person whose name appeared near the financial documents from his company.
Arthur noticed my reaction.
“You know her?”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
But deep down, I knew this was not a coincidence.
May you like
Not the kind that saved people.
The kind that revealed what they had been avoiding.
