Chương 5
“I sent someone to the address I had. You were gone.”
“My landlord raised the rent. I moved three blocks.”
“I searched for your name online.”
“My name is Elena Ward. There are thousands of us.”
“I know.”
“You could have tried harder.”
“Yes.”
There was no defense in the answer. She hated him for not giving her one.
Noah shifted in the bed, and the monitor changed rhythm. They both froze until the line settled.
Elena lowered herself into the chair.
“I was twenty-four,” she said. “I had eighty dollars after rent. My mother was dead. My father hadn’t spoken to me in two years because I left school. I opened a letter on the floor of my apartment that said the father of my baby considered me a threat.”
Adrian sat across from her.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.”
“I am.”
“Being sorry is the cheapest thing you can do right now.”
His eyes dropped. “Then I’ll do more expensive things.”
It was exactly the sort of sentence she expected from him, and yet his voice held no arrogance. Only a bleak awareness that money was the one language he had always been allowed to speak fluently.
Elena leaned back and closed her eyes. “That was a terrible thing to say.”
“Yes.”
“I meant you can’t fix this by paying.”
“I know what you meant.”
“Noah needs treatment. I’m not pretending money doesn’t matter. But if you make me choose between accepting your help and keeping control of my child, I’ll leave.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know what you’ll do.”
“Neither do you.”
She opened her eyes.
He looked exhausted now. Not magazine exhausted, the cultivated kind paired with private jets and long workdays. His hair had fallen forward. A faint scar crossed his left eyebrow. She remembered touching it before it existed.
“We should test,” Elena said.
“For paternity?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Then we can wait.”
“Noah already asked you. Waiting doesn’t put that question back in his mouth.”
Adrian nodded.
They signed consent forms shortly after sunrise.
The collection itself was undramatic. A technician swabbed the inside of Noah’s cheek while he slept, then Adrian’s, then Elena’s to strengthen the comparison. She sealed each sample in a labeled envelope and asked them to verify the names.
Estimated turnaround was forty-eight hours.
Adrian read every line before signing. Elena signed where she was told and immediately regretted not reading more carefully. She took a photograph of the form with her phone.
“Good,” Adrian said.
“What?”
“Keep copies.”
“I know how documents work.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Stop helping for five minutes.”
He sat down.
At seven thirty, Noah woke hungry. The nurse allowed ice chips but no food until the cardiology team decided whether a procedure might be necessary. Noah accepted this with less patience than he had accepted the possibility of a new father.
“I want pancakes.”
“You can have pancakes when the doctor says,” Elena told him.
“Doctors don’t make pancakes.”
“Then we’ll ask someone qualified.”
Adrian looked at the nurse. “Is there a qualified person?”
The nurse gave him the tired stare reserved for wealthy donors and anxious fathers. “There’s a cafeteria.”
Noah examined Adrian. “Do you know how to make pancakes?”
“Yes.”
Elena looked at him.
He corrected himself. “I know how they are made.”
“That’s not the same,” Noah said.
“No.”
“Mom burns the first one.”
“Everyone burns the first one,” Elena said.
“My chef doesn’t,” Adrian said.
She gave him a warning look.
Noah’s eyes widened. “You have a chef?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Because I burn more than the first one.”
That earned a small laugh.
Elena watched Adrian absorb the sound. His face barely changed, but his hand closed around the edge of his chair as if he needed to hold himself in place.
Celia Cross arrived at nine.
She entered without security, carrying a leather folder and wearing jeans beneath an expensive camel coat. At thirty-three, she resembled Adrian around the eyes but not the mouth. Hers seemed built for skepticism.
She stopped just inside the room.
“Noah?”
He looked at Elena.
“This is Adrian’s sister,” Elena said.
Celia’s expression faltered. She had prepared for resistance, not introduction.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Celia.”
“Do you have a heart machine?” Noah asked.
Her hand moved automatically to the left side of her chest. “I have a little monitor under my skin.”
“Does it beep?”
“No. It sends messages to my doctor.”
“Like a phone?”
“A boring phone.”
Noah considered that acceptable.
Celia placed the folder on the counter. “My records. Our mother’s autopsy report. My genetic testing was inconclusive five years ago, but the cardiologist wrote a summary.”
Dr. Kim arrived within minutes and took the folder. He asked Celia several questions outside the room. Elena saw Celia answer with her arms crossed, then look through the glass at Noah.
When she returned, she stood beside Adrian.
“You look like him,” she said quietly.
“We don’t know yet,” Adrian replied.
“I know what you looked like at six.”
Elena heard them.
Celia turned toward her. “I’m not trying to claim anything.”
“Good.”
“My brother says our father may have intercepted your contact.”
“Your brother says many things when he’s missing information.”
Adrian glanced at Elena but did not interrupt.
Celia nodded. “That’s true.”
The lack of defensiveness unsettled Elena.
“Did you know about me?” she asked.
“I knew your first name. I knew Adrian disappeared from Chicago in a mood that made everyone miserable.”
“I did not disappear in a mood,” Adrian said.
“You stopped speaking to people and drove too fast. That was your version of a mood.”
Celia looked back at Elena. “After the accident, our father told us you had asked not to be contacted again. I didn’t know about a pregnancy.”
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“Would you tell me if you had?”
“I don’t know. I was twenty-six and afraid of my father. I like to think I would have done the right thing. That is not evidence that I would have.”
