Chương 3
Rachel said, “Don’t.”
He stopped.
She went around the table herself, keeping as much distance from everyone as the narrow lounge allowed. She took the bottle, tested it against her wrist, and sat in the cream leather seat nearest the window.
Noah drank immediately.
Four adults watched him.
Rachel looked up.
“Stop staring at my son.”
Vanessa lowered her eyes.
David remained standing.
Rachel focused on Noah’s mouth working around the bottle nipple.
Thirty seconds passed.
Maybe a minute.
Nobody spoke.
The train carried them west through the storm.
Finally Rachel said, “Start at the beginning.”
David looked at Vanessa.
Rachel noticed.
“No. You.”
He sat across from her.
“After the second miscarriage, Dr. Patel told us another pregnancy wasn’t impossible, but it would be high risk.”
“I remember my own uterus, David.”
His eyes dropped.
“Right.”
Rachel hated the apology in that one word.
He continued.
“You wanted to try again.”
“We wanted to try again.”
“I was scared.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying you know.”
He nodded.
Vanessa stared toward the window.
David rubbed his thumb against the side of his index finger, an old nervous habit Rachel had not seen in years.
“We had embryos left from IVF.”
Rachel’s face went cold.
“Yes.”
“Three.”
“Yes.”
“One was transferred to me,” Rachel said. “It failed.”
David nodded.
“One was nonviable.”
“Yes.”
“And the last one?”
Silence.
Rachel’s attention shifted to Vanessa.
“No.”
Vanessa’s eyes filled.
Rachel looked at David.
“You told me it had arrested.”
“The clinic told you that.”
“You told the clinic to tell me that?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
David looked sick.
Vanessa answered.
“They transferred it to me.”
Noah stopped drinking.
Rachel tilted the bottle and he resumed.
She stared at Vanessa over his head.
“You carried our embryo?”
Vanessa nodded.
Rachel looked at David.
“So he is biologically ours.”
David’s expression did not change.
“Not exactly.”
Rachel’s hand went still.
Noah made an annoyed noise around the nipple.
She corrected the bottle angle.
“Explain exactly.”
David took a breath.
“The embryo transferred to Vanessa was supposed to be ours.”
“Supposed to be?”
“Yes.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“We don’t know.”
Rachel stared at him.
Eight months of midnight bottles, pediatric appointments, diaper blowouts, fevers, bathwater, lullabies and exhausted laughter narrowed into those three words.
We don’t know.
“How can you not know?”
Vanessa spoke carefully.
“Because the clinic made an error.”
“What error?”
“We found out after I was pregnant.”
Rachel looked between them.
“Found out how?”
Vanessa hesitated.
That hesitation mattered.
Rachel had begun to understand that every pause in this family contained a body.
“Ethan,” Vanessa said.
Rachel’s breath caught.
“What about him?”
“After he died, the hospital ran genetic testing. There were complications they were trying to understand. I didn’t look closely at the report for months.”
Her voice had changed. Less polished now.
“When I finally did, there was a discrepancy.”
“What discrepancy?”
“Ethan’s blood type didn’t make sense.”
Rachel frowned.
Vanessa continued.
“I asked questions. Then I asked more questions. The hospital recommended a genetic counselor. Eventually I had testing done.”
“And?”
“Ethan wasn’t genetically related to the man who was supposed to be his father.”
Margaret stared at her daughter.
“Supposed to be?”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Margaret’s voice hardened.
“Vanessa.”
“I used a donor.”
Margaret sat back.
“You told us Ethan was conceived naturally.”
“I lied.”
“Yes,” Margaret said. “I gathered that.”
Under any other circumstances, Rachel might have laughed at the dryness of it.
Nobody did.
Vanessa continued.
“The donor clinic and fertility clinic were affiliated. When the genetic counselor started asking for records, there were inconsistencies. Storage numbers. Transfer dates. Things that didn’t line up.”
Rachel felt the first shape of the truth approaching and wanted it to stop.
“You knew before Noah was born.”
“Yes.”
“How long before?”
“Four months.”
Rachel looked at David.
“And you?”
“About three and a half.”
“You kept this from me for three and a half months before he was born and eight months after.”
David did not defend himself.
Eleven and a half months.
Rachel calculated it automatically.
Almost a year of her life had occurred inside a lie.
“Why?”
David leaned forward.
“Because by the time we knew there might have been a mix-up, you were already preparing for him.”
Rachel stared.
“That’s your explanation?”
“No.”
“It sounded like one.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of losing you.”
Rachel almost laughed again.
“You should have been more afraid of this.”
“I am now.”
“That’s convenient.”
Vanessa looked at David.
“Tell her the rest.”
He did not move.
Rachel’s stomach tightened.
“What rest?”
Vanessa’s voice was barely audible.
“The clinic offered prenatal testing.”
Rachel looked at her.
“And?”
“David refused.”
Rachel turned toward him.
“You refused?”
“I wanted to wait.”
“Why?”
“Because prenatal testing carried questions about what we would do with the information. Vanessa was already pregnant. You had already—”
He stopped.
“I had already what?”
“Attached yourself.”
Rachel stared at him.
“To my child?”
“Yes.”
“Was I supposed to remain emotionally neutral until you completed your secret investigation?”
“No.”
“What exactly was the plan?”
“There wasn’t one.”
That answer, finally, sounded true.
Rachel looked at him for a long time.
“You didn’t have a plan.”
“No.”
“You lied to me every day because you didn’t have a plan.”
“Yes.”
Margaret stood again.
“I need water.”
Nobody stopped her.
She poured from the crystal carafe and spilled some onto the table.
Margaret Morgan, who corrected place settings at restaurants without seeming to touch them, spilled water and left it there.
Rachel watched the wet patch spread into the wine stain.
“What happened after Noah was born?”
David rubbed his face.
“The hospital collected cord blood.”
“With my consent?”
“No.”
Rachel’s eyes snapped to him.
“With Vanessa’s.”
“Because she gave birth.”
“Yes.”
“And you tested him.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Parentage.”
Rachel felt Noah’s bottle become light.
She removed it from his mouth.
He protested.
“Give me a second, sweetheart.”
May you like
Her voice sounded normal.
That was almost frightening.
