Chương 3
Nathan said nothing.
“We tried for two years.”
“I remember.”
“Three specialists.”
“I remember all of it.”
He remembered injections in the refrigerator. Calendar reminders. Blood draws before work. Claire crying once in the kitchen because an acquaintance had complained about accidentally becoming pregnant with a third child.
They had eventually stopped treatment.
Three months later, Claire had shown him a positive pregnancy test.
They called Lily their miracle.
Nathan suddenly hated the word.
Claire continued.
“After the last failed cycle, I went back to the clinic alone.”
“What clinic?”
“Briarwood Reproductive Medicine.”
Nathan knew the name.
He also knew he had never been there.
“We used Langford.”
“Yes.”
“So why were you at Briarwood?”
“Because Daniel knew a doctor there.”
Nathan's stomach tightened.
“What did you do?”
“I didn't know what I was doing anymore.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I know.”
“Then answer me.”
Claire looked at him.
“I used an embryo.”
The room seemed to contract.
Nathan heard the rain.
The ventilation system.
Somebody laughing in the corridor outside, unaware that a family was coming apart ten feet away.
“Whose embryo?”
“I was told it was ours.”
Nathan stared.
“Ours from Langford?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Daniel said there was one viable embryo that had been transferred incorrectly in the records after Langford sent samples to an outside lab. He said he could help me retrieve it.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
“That isn't the same thing.”
“No.”
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Did you sign anything?”
“Yes.”
“Did I?”
Claire's silence answered.
Nathan walked to the desk.
“You forged my signature?”
“No.”
“Then how did a clinic implant an embryo supposedly belonging to both of us without my consent?”
“I don't know everything Daniel did.”
Nathan stared at her.
“You're telling me you let someone put an embryo into your body and you don't know where it came from.”
Her face tightened.
“When you say it like that—”
“How else would you like me to say it?”
“I was desperate.”
“So was I.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't get that one anymore.”
Claire looked down.
Nathan pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“What happened after?”
“I got pregnant.”
“And Daniel?”
“He started asking questions.”
“After?”
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“The paperwork. The embryo identification. A physician at Briarwood had helped him, but Daniel began to think something was wrong.”
“What physician?”
“Dr. Peter Halden.”
Nathan repeated the name once.
He wanted to remember it.
“Daniel discovered the embryo number didn't match our records.”
“And he waited until you were nine months pregnant?”
“He didn't know until then.”
“Why not?”
“Because the clinic wouldn't give him the original documents. He wasn't a patient. Neither was I, officially.”
Nathan looked at her.
“What does officially mean?”
“It means the procedure wasn't entered normally.”
He sat down because his knees had begun to feel unreliable.
“This was illegal.”
“I don't know.”
“Claire.”
“I knew it was wrong.”
That was different.
More honest.
She swallowed.
“I knew enough to know I shouldn't have done it.”
Nathan looked at the locket.
“Daniel came back the night Lily was born because he'd found something.”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“He wouldn't tell me on the phone.”
“And then he died.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Car accident.”
“After leaving the hospital?”
Claire nodded.
Nathan studied her face.
“Maria knows.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She was there.”
Nathan's head came up.
“At the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Claire's voice nearly failed.
“Because Maria is Daniel's sister.”
Nathan said nothing for a long time.
He had known Maria for seven years.
He had attended her son's graduation party.
Claire had recommended her for the museum position.
Maria had babysat Lily twice.
Once, when Lily was four, Nathan had come home to find Maria teaching her how to make tortillas because Lily had announced that the frozen ones in their kitchen were “sad circles.”
He stood.
“Get Maria.”
“Nathan.”
“Get her.”
Claire opened the door.
Maria was sitting on a bench across the corridor with Lily, who was drawing in an oversized museum activity book.
Claire whispered something.
Maria looked at Nathan through the open doorway.
Then she looked at Lily.
“Sweetheart,” Maria said, “your mom is going to stay with you for a minute.”
Lily frowned.
“Are you all still talking about the picture?”
“Yes.”
“Did Daddy figure out who the man is?”
Claire sat beside her.
“He was my brother.”
Lily considered that.
“So my uncle?”
Claire's mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't I meet him?”
“He died before you were born.”
“But Miss Maria said the picture was the night I was born.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Right after you were born.”
Lily accepted the correction.
Children sometimes stepped around emotional land mines because they could not see them.
Maria entered the office.
Nathan closed the door.
“Daniel was your brother.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Claire asked me not to.”
“That stopped mattering tonight.”
“I know.”
“How did Lily get the locket?”
Maria looked ashamed.
“It fell from my bag.”
“You carry it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Maria hesitated.
“It belonged to Daniel.”
Nathan stared at her.
“Then why is there a photograph of Claire inside?”
“He put it there.”
“Why?”
“Because that photograph wasn't about the kiss.”
Maria held out her hand.
Nathan gave her the locket.
She pressed her thumbnail beneath the velvet backing.
It lifted.
Nathan leaned closer.
Underneath was a folded strip of paper.
Claire stood so quickly her chair struck the wall.
“What is that?”
Maria looked at her.
“You never knew?”
“No.”
Maria unfolded it carefully.
The paper was yellowed along one edge.
There were six handwritten numbers.
And three letters.
BWM.
Nathan took out his phone.
“What are they?”
Maria shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Claire stared at the handwriting.
“That's Daniel's.”
Nathan photographed the paper.
Then he photographed the locket and the picture.
“Why didn't you ever look?”
Maria's expression hardened slightly.
“Because it was my brother's last possession, Nathan. Not a puzzle.”
He looked at her.
May you like
She looked back.
For the first time that evening, somebody did not retreat from his anger.
