Chương 9
Grace swallowed.
“Past tense?”
“Mostly.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the most honest one I have.”
She looked down at her wristband-free hand.
Eight years earlier, on a winter highway outside Tacoma, Grace had crawled into a smoking car after an ice collision and pressed her scarf against Ethan’s neck until paramedics arrived. They had not been friends before that night. He had been a resident she knew from the emergency department, impatient and charming, always carrying two pens and losing both.
Afterward, he brought her coffee every morning for three months. She mistook his devotion for recovery until he told her what it was. By then she had met Caleb.
“You should not have taken my case,” she said.
“I was the physician on call when you transferred.”
“You could have handed it off sooner.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because your placenta previa was complicated, you trusted me, and I believed I could separate caring about you from caring for you.”
“Could you?”
“In the room, yes.”
“And outside it?”
Ethan glanced at the elevators again.
“No.”
The admission was quiet.
Grace felt no rush of romance, no secret relief. Only another layer of fatigue.
“I need you not to wait for my marriage to end.”
“I’m not.”
“You said mostly.”
“I will not become Caleb’s accusation simply because part of it was true.”
The elevator opened.
Ethan stepped inside, then held the door.
“For what it is worth, Grace, you saved my life once. You do not owe me the rest of it.”
The doors closed between them.
Rebecca returned carrying two candy bars from the gift shop.
“You were gone a long time,” Grace said.
“I was respecting boundaries and buying chocolate.”
“You hate hospital gift shops.”
“I contain contradictions.”
Grace took the candy bar.
Three days later, she met Mason.
Nora chose a glass-walled family room at Harbor Children’s rather than his hospital room. Mason wore a mask and a navy sweatshirt that hung loosely from his shoulders. His green knit cap had a small embroidered airplane near the edge.
Caleb was not there.
Grace had asked for that condition. Nora agreed immediately.
Mason stood when Grace entered, then seemed uncertain whether he was expected to hug her. Grace was grateful when he remained beside his chair.
“I’m Grace.”
“I know.”
His voice was thinner than she expected, but his expression carried Caleb’s suspicion.
Nora sat near the window. She had short blond hair, no makeup, and the posture of someone accustomed to sleeping upright.
Grace lowered herself carefully into a chair across from Mason.
He looked at her stomach.
“My dad said the baby might help me.”
Nora’s head snapped toward him. “Mason.”
“He did.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Grace held still.
Nora closed her eyes briefly. “Caleb promised he wouldn’t speak to you about this.”
“He says lots of things.”
The sentence belonged to an eight-year-old who had learned disappointment too early.
Grace placed both hands over her belly. “The doctors don’t know whether the baby can help.”
“I know. They took like a million tubes of my blood.”
“They may collect blood from the umbilical cord when she is born. It does not hurt the baby. Then they test it.”
“And if it matches?”
“Then your doctors decide whether it is safe and useful.”
Mason looked at Nora. “That’s what she said.”
Nora’s mouth tightened. “Because it’s true.”
Mason returned his attention to Grace. “Do you have to say yes?”
“Yes.”
“What if you say no?”
The room became very quiet.
Grace had prepared for anger from him, or pleading, or a small child’s inability to understand why she might refuse. She had not prepared for the question as a question.
“Then the doctors keep looking for another donor.”
“Would you say no because my dad lied?”
Nora stood. “We can stop.”
“No,” Grace said.
She looked at Mason.
“I don’t know what I’m going to decide yet.”
He nodded once, absorbing an uncertainty adults had probably tried to hide from him.
“I’d be mad,” he said.
“That would be fair.”
“But it’s not the baby’s fault.”
“No.”
“Or mine.”
“No.”
He picked at a loose thread on his sleeve. “My dad said you were nice.”
Grace almost asked when Caleb had said it, and what else he had said, but Mason was not evidence.
“Your dad has told many different stories,” she said. “That does not mean everything he says is false.”
Mason considered this.
Then he asked, “Is it a girl?”
“Yes.”
“What’s her name?”
“We haven’t decided.”
“My dad said June.”
Grace felt the old kitchen floor beneath her memory.
“I used to like June.”
“You don’t now?”
“I’m not sure.”
Mason leaned back. “I think naming people is weird. You don’t know what they’re like yet.”
“That’s a good point.”
“My mom named me Mason because she saw it on a mailbox.”
Nora sighed. “That is not the whole story.”
“It’s most of it.”
For the first time, Grace smiled without pain.
They spoke for twenty minutes. Mason liked model airplanes, hated bananas, and missed school enough to pretend he did not. He asked whether babies could hear thoughts and whether his sister would look like him. Grace answered what she could and admitted what she could not.
Before she left, he held out a small plastic airplane.
“You can give her this.”
“I don’t know when I’ll see you again.”
“That’s okay. Keep it.”
Grace accepted the plane.
Outside the room, Nora leaned against the wall.
“I am sorry he asked you that.”
“He had a right to.”
“He is a child.”
“So is she.”
Nora looked at Grace’s belly.
“Yes.”
“Did Caleb ever talk about having another child before Mason got sick?”
“Not seriously.”
Grace nodded.
Nora’s face shifted. “I didn’t know.”
“I believe you.”
“I should have called you.”
“You believed him.”
“I wanted to believe him. That’s not the same.”
May you like
Grace understood the distinction too well.
Nora rubbed both hands over her face. “When Mason got sick, Caleb became useful. He filled forms, argued with insurance, slept in waiting rooms. I thought maybe the fear had finally made him grow up.”
