Chương 3
“I’m coming,” he said.
“I know.”
“No, Naomi. I mean I’m coming into that hospital, and if he’s anywhere near—”
“He’s gone.”
“Then I’ll wait.”
“Dad.”
“I said I’ll wait.”
His anger steadied her more than comfort would have.
“Security has his name,” she said. “Don’t make them add yours.”
Leon made a rough sound that might have been a laugh. “Bossing me around from a hospital bed. You must be all right.”
“I’m not.”
The honesty left them both quiet.
“I know,” he said. “I’m still coming.”
After the call, Naomi opened Daniel’s messages again. The earlier one had arrived while the babies were being brought downstairs.
Mom is worried about what people will say if there’s been some kind of mistake.
The second was the demand for space.
Naomi started typing, deleted the sentence, and turned the phone facedown.
Aisha moved toward the door.
“Wait,” Naomi said. “The wristband.”
Aisha picked it from the wastebasket with a gloved hand.
“Put it in a specimen bag.”
The nurse looked at her.
“Please.”
Aisha found a clear bag in a drawer, slid the band inside, sealed it, and wrote the date and time across the label.
“This is not formal evidence,” she said.
“I know.”
“You asked me to preserve it.”
“I did.”
Aisha placed the bag in the bedside cabinet.
“Why?”
Naomi looked at the block letters through the plastic.
“Because tomorrow someone will tell me I misunderstood what happened.”
Leon arrived wearing a navy windbreaker, brown work boots, and the expression of a man who had spent twenty minutes rehearsing restraint and did not trust the result. He washed his hands for longer than necessary, dried them on three paper towels, then stood beside Naomi’s bed without touching her.
She saw him notice the pearl earrings she had forgotten to remove, the swollen line beneath her eyes, the empty room.
He looked toward the door.
“Where are the babies?”
“Back upstairs.”
“When can I see them?”
“Tomorrow morning, if you behave.”
“I’m always behaved.”
“Dad.”
“I have been behaved since Nixon.”
“You were seventeen when Nixon resigned.”
“That was a difficult year.”
Naomi laughed once, painfully. Leon’s face softened, and he leaned down to kiss her forehead.
He smelled like highway air, coffee, and the peppermint gum he chewed when trying not to smoke. He had quit twelve years earlier but still carried an unopened pack in the glove compartment, which Naomi considered either heroic or ridiculous depending on the day.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” he said.
She did.
Leon listened without interrupting until she described Evelyn’s sentence.
“My son will not raise another man’s children,” Naomi repeated.
Leon sat in the chair.
For a moment he studied the blue towels near the sink as though they required his full concentration. “That woman has been waiting to say something like that since the wedding.”
Naomi pulled the blanket higher. “She was polite at the wedding.”
“She asked me whether your mother had been ‘dark like you.’”
Naomi turned her head.
“She what?”
“I told her Denise had been darker and prettier than both of us.”
“You never told me.”
“You were getting married.”
“That is exactly when you should have told me.”
“I thought Daniel was different.”
“So did I.”
Leon looked at his hands.
The sentence remained between them without decoration.
Daniel had been different when Naomi met him, or had known how to appear different. He had come to her firm as a client during a difficult restructuring. He listened when she spoke, remembered the names of junior lawyers, and once interrupted his own chief financial officer for calling a receptionist “sweetheart.” When Naomi accused him later of performing decency for attention, he had seemed honestly wounded.
He had pursued her with patience. He learned to cook one meal properly because she hated eating at restaurants every night. He tolerated Leon’s suspicion and Renee’s interrogation. He told Evelyn to stop referring to Naomi as “impressive” in the same tone she used for unusually obedient dogs.
For a while, Naomi believed Daniel’s willingness to oppose his mother meant he had escaped her.
She had not understood that resistance and freedom were different things.
Leon nodded toward the bedside cabinet. “What’s in there?”
“His hospital band.”
“You kept it?”
“I asked the nurse to bag it.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You were born ready for court.”
“This may never go to court.”
“Baby girl.”
“I know.”
Her phone rang.
Daniel’s name appeared on the screen.
Leon stood so quickly that the chair legs scraped the floor.
Naomi raised one hand. “Sit.”
“I am sitting in spirit.”
She answered and placed the call on speaker.
Daniel’s voice came through with the faint echo of a moving car. “Are you alone?”
“No.”
A pause.
“Who is there?”
“My father.”
Leon opened his mouth. Naomi pointed at him.
Daniel exhaled. “I don’t think this is a conversation we should have with an audience.”
“You made the first part public.”
“I made a mistake.”
Naomi waited.
The silence lengthened until Daniel was forced to continue.
“I was shocked. I’d been awake for almost thirty hours. My mother was—”
“Your mother finished your accusation for you.”
“I know how it looked.”
“It looked like you rejected five newborn children because their skin was darker than you expected.”
“You’re simplifying this.”
Leon made a sound deep in his throat.
Naomi kept her eyes on him. “Then explain the complexity.”
Daniel did not answer immediately. In the background, a horn sounded.
“We tried for three years,” he said. “There were appointments, medication, procedures. We both know errors happen.”
“No procedure created this pregnancy.”
“I know that.”
“The babies were conceived at home, Daniel.”
“I know what you’re saying.”
“Do you?”
He lowered his voice. “My attorney will arrange testing.”
Naomi’s fingers went cold around the phone.
“You spoke to an attorney before you called me?”
“I needed advice.”
“You left twenty-seven minutes ago.”
“My family has counsel available.”
May you like
“Of course it does.”
“This is not an accusation. It’s verification.”
