Chương 8
She knew that.
Still, Amelia had Victoria’s eyebrows.
She closed the image.
Opened it again.
Then called Mara.
“I found her.”
“I told you not to search.”
“I searched.”
“Did you contact them?”
“No.”
“Did you save photographs?”
Victoria looked at the screenshot on her phone.
“Yes.”
“Delete them.”
“Why?”
“Because you are a human being currently capable of bad judgment.”
Victoria deleted them.
She hated Mara for eleven minutes.
Then she was grateful.
The Donovans did not respond well to contact from the attorneys.
Their lawyer’s letter was brief.
They disputed the reliability of Northstar’s records, refused voluntary testing, and demanded that Victoria and Daniel cease any attempt at direct or indirect contact.
Victoria read the letter twice.
“They can’t refuse forever.”
Mara looked at her.
“Maybe not.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“We believe she may be.”
“The records—”
“Victoria.”
Victoria stood and walked to the window.
“They have a child they believe is theirs,” Mara said. “Imagine someone called Lauren the day before the airport and said Noah wasn’t hers.”
Victoria did not need to imagine.
She had seen Lauren’s face.
“What if they never agree?”
“Then legal proceedings continue.”
“How long?”
“Longer than you want.”
Everything took longer than she wanted.
Daniel moved out of the penthouse.
He rented an apartment in Tribeca and sent Victoria an inventory of the things he had taken.
Half the wine.
His records.
Two paintings inherited from his father.
A coffee grinder.
Victoria read the list and became irrationally angry about the grinder.
She called him.
“You took the burr grinder?”
There was a pause.
“Yes.”
“That was mine.”
“You gave it to me for Christmas.”
“I gave it to the kitchen.”
Daniel started laughing.
She nearly hung up.
Then, against her will, she laughed too.
It lasted three seconds.
Afterward the silence was unbearable.
Daniel said, “I miss you.”
Victoria looked at the empty hotel room.
“Don’t.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Right.”
He exhaled.
“Sorry.”
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why were you really taking Lauren and Noah out of the country?”
Daniel did not answer immediately.
“The plane was going to Toronto.”
“Why?”
“Northstar’s counsel told me Bennett had contacted you.”
“And your solution was to move them?”
“I panicked.”
“Did Lauren know?”
“She knew about the press risk. Not the records.”
“So you lied to her again.”
“Yes.”
“Were you trying to keep Noah from me?”
Daniel’s silence lasted too long.
“Partly.”
Victoria closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because once you knew, everything changed.”
“That is what truth does.”
“I know.”
She did not correct him that time.
Daniel continued. “I’d become part of Noah’s life. A small part. Lauren trusted me enough to let me help. I had convinced myself I could eventually find a way to tell you without blowing up his world.”
“There was no version where his world didn’t change.”
“I understand that now.”
“No. You understand that you got caught.”
Daniel accepted the sentence.
Maybe because he knew she was right.
Maybe because he was tired.
The Donovans eventually agreed to genetic testing after their own attorney reviewed the recovered Northstar records and after an independent laboratory specialist confirmed that the specimen codes were credible enough to warrant concern.
Testing took place privately.
Victoria did not attend.
Neither did Daniel.
The wait lasted six days.
On the sixth, Mara called.
“Amelia is your genetic daughter.”
Victoria was sitting in the office conference room alone.
She looked at the empty chair across from her.
“Daniel?”
“Also confirmed.”
“And Claire?”
Mara paused.
“Not genetically related.”
Victoria leaned back.
The ceiling lights blurred.
There were now two children.
Noah, who said boom when toy planes crashed.
Amelia, who laughed on a man’s shoulders in a photograph Victoria was no longer supposed to possess.
Both alive.
Both hers.
Neither hers in any simple way.
“What do the Donovans want?”
“To be left alone.”
Victoria pressed her fingers against her eyes.
“That’s not possible.”
“No.”
“What do they know about Lauren’s embryo?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Do we?”
“Not enough.”
The broader audit had identified one additional transfer involving a mismatched embryo number.
A third family.
Lauren’s original embryo may have been transferred there.
The possibility transformed Lauren again.
For several days she stopped answering Victoria’s calls.
When she finally called back, she sounded exhausted.
“I don’t know if I want to know.”
Victoria sat in her office after everyone else had gone home.
“Yes, you do.”
“No. You want to know.”
“You called me.”
“I know.”
Lauren breathed.
“What if there’s another child?”
“Then there’s another child.”
“What if they’re happy?”
“They probably are.”
“What if I ruin them?”
Victoria turned toward the glass wall overlooking the dark city.
“You won’t ruin them by existing.”
“That sounds like something you’ve been practicing.”
“I have.”
Lauren was quiet.
Then: “What if my embryo didn’t survive?”
Victoria did not answer immediately.
“That’s possible.”
“I hate you for saying that.”
“I know.”
They both laughed softly.
The search revealed that Lauren’s embryo had not resulted in a live birth.
The recipient had experienced an early miscarriage.
There was no child waiting somewhere.
Lauren received the news in her attorney’s office.
Victoria was not there.
Lauren called her that night.
“I thought I’d be relieved.”
Victoria sat on the floor beside her bed.
“Why?”
“Because it meant there wasn’t another family. Another fight. Another kid who might someday look at me like I’m a stranger.”
She sniffed.
“But now it feels like I lost somebody I never met.”
Victoria looked at the box of animal crackers still unopened on the table.
“Yes.”
“You know that feeling.”
“Yes.”
They stayed on the phone without speaking for almost a minute.
Then Lauren said, “Noah ate a crayon today.”
“What color?”
“Purple.”
“Serious?”
“Apparently not.”
Victoria smiled.
“Good.”
“Okay. I’m going to bed.”
“Lauren.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Victoria considered the enormous list.
“For your embryo.”
Lauren was quiet.
“Me too.”
The clinic scandal became public anyway.
May you like
Not because Victoria leaked it.
A former employee filed a regulatory complaint naming Northstar, and a reporter connected it to the airport incident.
