Chương 7
Testing from the deceased infant required additional consent and procedural review.
Laura gave consent.
She signed the form with a hand that barely moved.
Margaret tried to take the pen from her afterward.
Laura pulled it away.
It was the first openly hostile thing she had done to her mother.
Margaret sat back.
“Laura.”
“Don’t.”
“I was going to put the cap on.”
“I said don’t.”
Margaret folded her hands.
Laura stared at them.
“Did you touch him?”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“Who?”
“My baby.”
“Laura—”
“Did you hold him?”
Margaret looked toward the administrator.
Laura laughed.
“Oh, that’s interesting.”
“Please.”
“You answer everybody else in bullet points.”
“Not here.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’re tired.”
“I gave birth to a dead baby and you told me he was being evaluated.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Laura’s voice stayed quiet.
“Did you hold him?”
“Yes.”
The word barely came out.
Laura stared at her mother.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he warm?”
Margaret’s mouth moved.
No sound came.
That answer hurt more than anything else.
Laura pressed both hands between her knees and bent forward.
Claire looked away.
The administrator began to speak.
Laura said, “Everybody out.”
No one moved.
“Except her.”
She pointed at Margaret.
Claire rose.
Margaret said, “Laura, I don’t think—”
“I don’t care.”
Claire left with the others.
The door closed behind them.
Daniel was waiting in the corridor.
He had slept for maybe twenty minutes in a chair beside Nora.
His hair stood up on one side.
“What happened?”
Claire told him about the parentage testing.
“How fast?”
“Laboratory staff are prioritizing it.”
“That isn’t a time.”
“No.”
He clenched his jaw.
Claire said, “I’m not going to promise you something I don’t control.”
Daniel looked past her toward the closed door.
“Is that the other mother?”
“Yes.”
“Does she think he’s hers?”
Claire considered the question.
“I think she’s trying to understand what happened to her son.”
Daniel’s face softened despite himself.
Then hardened again.
“If her mother took mine—”
“We don’t know the full sequence.”
“You believe it.”
Claire said nothing.
Daniel stepped closer.
“You believe it.”
“I believe Margaret interfered with identification procedures.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No.”
“What happens if that baby is mine?”
“He goes to you and Nora when it is medically appropriate and identity is confirmed.”
“What happens to her?”
“Laura?”
“Margaret.”
“That won’t be my decision.”
“It’ll be the police.”
“Potentially.”
“Potentially?”
“Daniel, I am not going to invent legal outcomes.”
He looked furious.
Claire let him.
After a moment, he rubbed his face.
“I keep wanting everybody to tell me one simple thing.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
He stopped.
Then laughed without humor.
“I did it again.”
“Yes.”
“Sorry.”
Claire nodded toward the coffee station.
“Do you want some?”
“No.”
“You should drink something.”
“Is that medical advice?”
“Barely.”
They stood beside a machine that produced coffee neither of them wanted.
Daniel watched the liquid fill a paper cup anyway.
“My wife hates hospital coffee.”
“Most people do.”
“She brings her own tea bags everywhere.”
Claire handed him the cup.
“She told me her mother is going to kill you.”
Daniel stared.
Then he smiled for the first time.
“See? Alive.”
It disappeared quickly.
But it had been there.
The laboratory called at 8:43.
The living newborn was the biological child of Nora and Daniel Reed.
Claire sat down when she heard.
Not because she was shocked.
Because certainty had weight.
She called Daniel first.
He put the phone on speaker beside Nora.
Claire said, “The living baby is your son.”
Silence.
Then Nora began crying.
Not loudly.
Daniel said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How sure?”
“The testing supports parentage. The lab has verified the result.”
“Can we see him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“We’re arranging it now.”
Nora’s voice came through the speaker.
“What about the other baby?”
Claire looked through the glass toward Laura’s room.
“That testing is still being completed.”
Nora was quiet.
Then she said, “Don’t call him the other baby.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“You’re right.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Find out.”
“I will.”
The deceased infant’s name was Owen Hale.
Laura had chosen it five months earlier.
She told Claire later that morning while waiting for confirmation that the child in the morgue was hers.
“My husband wanted Oliver,” she said.
Claire sat across from her in an empty consultation room.
“I told him Oliver sounded like a British child who owned a tiny coat.”
Claire smiled.
Laura did not.
“He said Owen sounded like a farmer.”
“Did either of you grow up on a farm?”
“No.”
“That feels unfair to Owen.”
Laura looked at her.
Then, unexpectedly, she laughed.
It lasted two seconds.
Her face crumpled afterward.
“I don’t want this to be funny.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I laughed.”
“You’re allowed.”
“People keep telling me what I’m allowed to do.”
Claire nodded.
“Fair.”
Laura wiped her eyes.
“Did my mother take their baby?”
“I don’t know exactly what she did.”
“You think she did.”
“I think she made decisions that disrupted identification and prevented accurate information from reaching families.”
Laura gave her a tired look.
“You sound like a brochure.”
Claire leaned back.
“Yes.”
“Try again.”
Claire looked at her hands.
“I think your mother knew your baby had died.”
Laura’s mouth tightened.
“I think she knew Nora Reed was critically ill and believed, or chose to believe, that Nora might not survive.”
Laura stopped breathing.
Claire continued carefully.
“I think she interfered with identification before anyone had established what would happen to Nora.”
“Why?”
“I can’t answer that for her.”
“You can guess.”
“I don’t think guessing helps you.”
“It helps me.”
Claire looked at her.
Laura’s eyes were dry now.
“My mother has fixed my life since I was six,” she said. “Teachers. College. Jobs. My wedding. When Evan died, she handled the funeral before I could choose the music.”
Claire said nothing.
“She loved him.”
“I’m sure.”
May you like
“That wasn’t the problem.”
Laura rubbed her palms together.
