Chương 2
His eyes moved toward Melinda.
She held the baby tighter.
“No,” Connor said.
It was not a denial directed at Kirsten. It was almost a plea to the woman holding his child.
Melinda swallowed. “Connor, we need to leave.”
“Is he ours?”
The baby pressed the stuffed giraffe against his mouth.
Melinda looked down the hall, as if one of the painted clouds might open and offer another exit.
Connor’s voice roughened. “Is he mine and Kirsten’s?”
A family near the elevators pulled their little girl closer. The child wore a purple cast covered in silver stars and watched the adults with open curiosity.
Kirsten stepped toward the reception desk. “Nina, can you move the Halpern appointment into Room Six? And call Environmental Services for the spill.”
The nurse above the keyboard lowered her hands. “Of course.”
The normality of Kirsten’s tone gave everyone permission to resume breathing. A phone rang. Someone answered it. The father with the coffee took his son by the shoulder and guided him toward the aquarium at the far end of the wing.
Connor looked at Kirsten as if her return to work were another kind of cruelty.
“You’re not walking away from this.”
“I’m getting this out of a pediatric hallway.”
“He’s my son.”
“I know.”
The words stopped him.
Kirsten had not meant them as an accusation. They came from a place she could not yet examine, a place made of a raised eyebrow, blue eyes, and one small hand wrapped around a toy giraffe.
Kenneth pressed the elevator button.
Melinda whispered, “I’m taking him home.”
“You’re coming upstairs,” Connor said.
“I’m not.”
He turned on her with a suddenness that made the baby startle. Kirsten lifted one hand.
“Lower your voice.”
Connor looked at the child and obeyed. That obedience, too, was automatic.
Melinda backed away from the milk. “My attorney told me not to speak to anyone if this happened.”
Kenneth’s expression changed by less than an inch. “You have an attorney prepared for this?”
She closed her eyes.
Connor seemed to lose the ability to stand in the shape he had chosen for himself. His shoulders dropped. “How long have you known?”
The elevator doors opened again.
Melinda said nothing.
Kirsten entered with Kenneth. Connor followed. After a moment, Melinda carried the baby inside.
The four adults stood beneath the fluorescent light while the doors closed on the hospital wing. In the narrowing gap, Kirsten saw the nurse kneel to retrieve the bottle cap. The milk had reached one wheel of the stroller.
Upstairs, Kenneth led them into an unused family conference room overlooking a parking structure and the gray glass towers beyond it. The room contained a round table, six chairs, a tissue box, and a framed print of a sailboat that appeared to have been chosen for its inability to offend anyone. Kirsten had delivered bad news in rooms like this. She knew where the walls were thickest and which chairs allowed people to leave without asking someone else to move.
Melinda chose the chair nearest the door.
Connor remained standing.
Kenneth placed the brown folder on the table but did not open it. “Before we begin, Mrs. Hayes, you should contact your attorney.”
“Don’t call me that,” Melinda said.
Kenneth paused. “Ms. Hayes.”
“She’s not married to me,” Connor said. “We’re engaged.”
Melinda gave him a strange look. “That matters to you right now?”
“It matters when he calls you something you’re not.”
“Connor,” Kirsten said.
He turned. “What?”
“Stop correcting the furniture while the building burns.”
Kenneth looked at her. Under other circumstances, the line might have amused him. His face remained still.
Melinda sat with the baby on her lap. He had begun to pull at the satin tie of her dress. She moved his hand away, then let him take it again.
Connor braced both palms on the table. “Open the folder.”
“I will not discuss the contents until everyone has counsel or voluntarily agrees to proceed without it.”
“I voluntarily agree.”
“You may. Ms. Hayes has not.”
Connor looked at her. “Call your lawyer.”
Melinda’s lips trembled once. “My phone is in the diaper bag.”
The diaper bag hung from the stroller downstairs.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“I’ll get it,” Kirsten said.
Connor straightened. “You’re leaving?”
“The child needs his bag.”
“You’re worried about wipes?”
“Yes.”
He stared at her with baffled anger.
Kirsten was suddenly too tired to explain that babies required wipes regardless of genetic crises, that hunger did not pause for legal advice, that a one-year-old could not wait politely while adults reconstructed the theft of his existence.
She left the room before her restraint became something else.
In the elevator, her reflection looked unfamiliar. Her updo had loosened near one ear. Her ID badge hung slightly crooked. She corrected it, then became angry at herself for correcting it.
When the doors opened, the pediatric wing was moving again. A toddler cried near the aquarium. Someone laughed from an examination room. The milk had been cleaned. The stroller stood beside the reception desk with the diaper bag hanging from its handle and the empty bottle placed upright in the cup holder.
Nina watched Kirsten approach.
“Do you need me to call Dr. Patel?”
“No.”
“Administration?”
“Not yet.”
“Security?”
“No.”
Nina glanced toward the ceiling, where a black half-sphere camera covered the hallway. “The whole thing is probably recorded.”
Kirsten followed her gaze.
Connor’s words existed now outside memory. They lived on a hospital server, perhaps with sound, perhaps without it. They lived in the faces of strangers. By evening, they might live anywhere.
“Can you ask compliance to preserve the footage?” Kirsten said.
Nina nodded. “Already did.”
Kirsten looked at her.
The nurse shrugged, a little embarrassed. “My sister went through fertility treatment. Records go missing when somebody wants them missing.”
Kirsten took the diaper bag. “Thank you.”
“Dr. Sinclair?”
She turned.
May you like
Nina’s expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
Kirsten had heard those words after failed transfers, after surgeries, after the clinic’s call informing her that the embryo was no longer viable. She had heard them from people who loved her and people paid to stand near grief. She had learned that saying thank you was easier than deciding what anyone meant.
