Chương 4
The clinic offered a refund for storage fees and a complimentary consultation about donor eggs. Kirsten hired no lawyer. She signed a confidential settlement because she could not bear to read the word embryo in another document. Connor signed after her.
Their marriage lasted six more months.
The morning after Kenneth’s appearance at the hospital, Kirsten woke at 4:17 and found herself standing in her kitchen with the refrigerator door open.
She had no memory of getting out of bed.
Cold light fell across a jar of mustard, two eggs, a container of soup, and three small bottles of sparkling water Connor used to complain tasted like television static. The apartment was silent except for the refrigerator motor and the faint traffic twelve floors below.
She closed the door.
Her phone showed fifty-three missed calls, fourteen voicemails, and more messages than the screen could count without scrolling. Nina had sent a link shortly after midnight.
The hospital video had no sound, but someone near the reception desk had recorded Connor’s sentence on a phone. The clip had been posted with the caption PEDIATRIC DOCTOR’S EX HUMILIATES HER AT WORK, THEN LAWYER DROPS A BOMB.
The person filming had stopped before Kenneth explained the record. Online, the “bomb” could have been anything.
Kirsten watched only once.
She saw herself in the foreground, very still. Connor pointed toward the stroller. Melinda stood behind him. The bottle fell. Kenneth spoke. Connor turned toward the child.
The video made the moment look arranged. The hospital lighting was too bright, the positions too exact. Kirsten understood why strangers believed reality required no editing when people behaved badly enough.
Comments multiplied beneath it.
Some defended her. Some accused her of being cold. Several said Connor had probably left because she cared more about work than family. One wrote that a woman who wore a red dress under a white coat during clinic hours was obviously seeking attention. Another had identified Connor’s consulting firm. Someone else found Melinda’s interior-design account and posted photographs from the baby’s first birthday.
Kirsten turned off the phone.
At six thirty, she made coffee and forgot to put the mug beneath the machine. Dark liquid spread across the counter and dripped onto the floor.
She watched it for several seconds before reaching for a towel.
At seven fifteen, Kenneth called.
“Tell me you haven’t spoken to anyone,” he said.
“Good morning.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I haven’t spoken to anyone.”
“Hospital communications?”
“No.”
“Connor?”
“No.”
“Melinda?”
“No.”
“Anyone with a podcast?”
Kirsten leaned against the counter. “There are people with podcasts calling me?”
“There are people with podcasts calling me.”
“That seems like a consequence of choosing law.”
“I chose probate. Probate used to have standards.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
Kenneth heard it. His voice softened. “How are you?”
She looked at the towel on the floor, stained with coffee. “I’m late for work.”
“You are on administrative leave.”
The smile disappeared. “Since when?”
“Since eleven minutes ago. The hospital’s counsel called me before calling you.”
“I did nothing wrong.”
“This is not disciplinary. They’re concerned about patient privacy, media presence, and possible conflicts because the confrontation occurred in the pediatric wing.”
“My patients are there.”
“They will be there when this is addressed.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Kenneth said. “I don’t.”
Kirsten walked to the window. Below, headlights moved along wet streets. On the building opposite hers, a man in a blue shirt watered a plant on a narrow balcony. The rain had been falling since midnight. He watered it anyway.
“What is in the folder?” she asked.
Kenneth was quiet.
“You said you found the record.”
“We found a copy. I want you to see it in my office, not over email.”
“Why?”
“Because there are signatures.”
Her free hand tightened around the edge of the counter.
“Whose?”
“Come in at nine.”
“Kenneth.”
“Your name is on it.”
She stopped breathing.
“And Connor’s,” he added. “Both appear to authorize the transfer.”
“We never authorized a transfer to Melinda.”
“I know.”
“Are they forged?”
“I believe so.”
“By whom?”
“That is what we need to establish.”
At nine, Kirsten sat across from Kenneth in an office lined with books no one appeared to touch. Rain moved down the windows in uneven lines. His assistant brought tea. Kirsten did not drink it.
The transfer record lay between them inside a clear evidence sleeve.
NORTHLAKE REPRODUCTIVE MEDICINE appeared at the top. Beneath it were patient numbers, dates, laboratory identifiers, and language authorizing the thaw and transfer of one chromosomally screened embryo.
The intended recipient field contained Melinda Hayes’s name.
At the bottom, beside separate lines for the genetic contributors, were signatures resembling Kirsten’s and Connor’s.
Kirsten leaned closer.
Her signature was good. Not perfect, but good enough for someone who saw it once among a stack of forms. The first letter of Sinclair had the long descending curve she used. The dot over the second i was absent, as it often was when she signed quickly.
Connor’s signature looked more natural.
“Could he have signed this?” she asked.
Kenneth did not answer immediately.
“Could he?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt by a degree.
“You told me yesterday he needed his own counsel because our interests might conflict.”
“They might.”
“You think he knew.”
“I think we should not assume he didn’t.”
Kirsten stared at the paper. “He looked terrified.”
“Guilty people experience fear.”
“So do innocent people.”
“Yes.”
She sat back.
Kenneth slid another document toward her. It was a billing report showing a payment of eighteen thousand dollars from a corporation Kirsten did not recognize. The payment had been applied to Melinda’s account two days before the transfer.
“Who owns the company?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“Connor had shell companies for consulting contracts.”
“His firm has several business entities. None with this name, according to the records we have.”
May you like
“What else?”
“A laboratory inventory log shows your embryo removed at 6:42 a.m. on the day of the transfer. The original electronic record was later altered to classify it as discarded. The user credentials belonged to an embryologist named Dr. Rafael Vale.”
