Chapter 3 - My Husband Already Knew
Dr. Bell arrived twenty minutes later.
This time he used the front door in daylight.
I did not welcome him.
He was fifty-something, silver-haired, neat, with the controlled expression of a doctor accustomed to bad conversations.
Daniel arrived seconds behind him.
So much for work.
“You called him,” I said.
Daniel didn’t deny it.
We gathered in the living room.
Mom sat on the sofa.
I remained standing.
Dr. Bell set his medical case down.
“I’m going to say something first,” he told me. “Your mother’s pregnancy is medically real, medically high-risk, and medically supervised.”
“I figured out the first two.”
He nodded.
“She is carrying a donor embryo.”
“Whose?”
He looked at Mom.
“I cannot disclose genetic parentage without authorization.”
“I authorize it,” Mom whispered.
Dr. Bell’s expression changed.
Daniel immediately said, “Evelyn, think.”
I turned on him.
“No. You think. You’ve done enough thinking for everyone.”
Mom inhaled slowly.
“Tell her.”
Dr. Bell sat.
“The embryo was created almost seven years ago.”
I frowned.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“Then Margaret Vale didn’t create it eight months ago.”
“No.”
“Why was she paying?”
“Because it belonged to her.”
My chest tightened.
“Genetically?”
Dr. Bell paused.
“In part.”
I already knew what question came next.
“Who was the father?”
Mom began crying before he answered.
Dr. Bell said quietly, “Your father.”
The room tilted.
I grabbed the back of a chair.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“I understand this is—”
“My father died eleven years ago.”
“The embryo had been cryopreserved before his death.”
I looked at Mom.
She nodded.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
My voice came out hollow.
“Dad had an embryo with another woman?”
“Yes.”
The betrayal was eleven years late.
It still hurt.
I pictured my father, Henry Harper.
Barbecue on Sundays.
Bad jokes.
Old country songs.
His hand on Mom’s back.
His voice telling me I was his best girl.
And somewhere, hidden in another city, a frozen embryo existed with half his DNA.
“Did he have an affair?”
Mom stared at her hands.
“For a short time.”
I closed my eyes.
Daniel moved toward me.
I stepped away.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“Margaret?”
Mom nodded.
“Before Dad died?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know?”
“Not until afterward.”
“How?”
“Margaret came to me.”
“When?”
“About a year after the funeral.”
My anger sharpened.
“And she told you she had an embryo with him?”
“Yes.”
“Why would anyone create an embryo during an affair?”
Dr. Bell answered.
“Margaret had cancer.”
I looked at him.
“She underwent fertility preservation before treatment. Your father contributed genetic material.”
The clinical phrasing made it worse.
I stared at my mother.
“You found out Dad cheated after he died, and you stayed in contact with her?”
“No. Not at first.”
“What happened?”
Mom looked exhausted.
“Margaret apologized.”
I laughed bitterly.
“How generous.”
“She didn’t ask forgiveness.”
“Good.”
“She wanted me to know the embryo existed.”
“Why?”
“Because if her cancer returned, she wanted someone to know.”
“Did it?”
Mom nodded.
“Last year.”
The room fell quiet.
Margaret had died eight months ago.
Before dying, she apparently paid for my mother to become pregnant.
Nothing about that made sense.
“Why you?”
Mom looked at me.
“She didn’t ask me.”
“Then who did?”
Silence.
I looked at Daniel.
He turned away.
Something inside me broke.
“You.”
He exhaled.
“Claire.”
“You asked my mother to carry my father’s affair baby?”
“No.”
“Then explain it.”
He sat heavily.
“Margaret contacted me.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“Almost two years ago.”
“Two years.”
“Yes.”
“You knew about Dad for two years?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“She asked me not to.”
“She was a stranger.”
“She wasn’t asking for herself.”
“Then who?”
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
“Margaret’s cancer had returned. She was trying to decide what to do with the embryo.”
“So she called my husband?”
“She had been trying to reach Evelyn.”
Mom interrupted.
“I had blocked her years earlier.”
Daniel continued.
“She found my name through public records.”
I stared.
“And?”
“She wanted the embryo donated.”
“Donated to whom?”
His eyes met mine.
“You.”
I couldn’t speak.
Dr. Bell explained quietly.
“Margaret knew you and Daniel had infertility problems.”
“How?”
“Your father had apparently told her about you years earlier. Later she found your public fundraiser for fertility treatment.”
I had forgotten that page.
Friends created it after our second miscarriage.
We raised less than three thousand dollars.
But it had existed online.
Margaret had found me.
“She offered me my father’s embryo?”
Daniel nodded.
“She thought you might want a biological sibling to your child. Or a chance to carry a pregnancy connected to your father after your own embryos failed.”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“That is insane.”
“I thought so too.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Because you were pregnant with Lily when she contacted me again.”
I went still.
Daniel’s eyes filled.
“You had almost lost Lily twice. You were on bed rest. You were terrified every day. Margaret was dying. She wanted an answer. I told her no.”
I looked at Mom.
“Then why are you pregnant?”
Mom spoke.
“Because Margaret called me.”
The pieces shifted again.
“After Daniel said no?”
“Yes.”
“She wanted you to carry it?”
“No.”
“What did she want?”
“To destroy it.”
I frowned.
“She said she couldn’t bear leaving it stored forever. She had no family who wanted responsibility. Your father was dead. She was dying.”
Mom touched her belly.
“She wanted someone from Henry’s family to make the final decision.”
“You decided to have it implanted?”
“I decided to save it.”
I stared at her.
“You are risking your life for Dad’s affair baby.”
Mom flinched.
I regretted the words instantly.
But not enough to take them back.
She whispered, “The baby didn’t betray me.”
That silenced the room.
“The adults did,” she continued. “Henry did. Margaret did. Daniel hid things. I hid things. But that child had done nothing.”
I sat.
Suddenly, anger and grief were fighting for the same space inside me.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I knew what you would hear.”
“What?”
“That I loved your father more than I loved you.”
I stared.
“That’s not—”
“It is exactly what you would have thought.”
She wiped her eyes.
“But that isn’t why I did it.”
“Then why?”
Mom looked toward Lily’s nursery.
“Because after Lily was born, I saw you become a mother.”
My throat tightened.
“You held that little girl like she had returned something to you that infertility had stolen.”
Mom smiled sadly.
“And I thought about another baby sitting in a freezer because every adult connected to its creation was either dead, ashamed, angry, or afraid.”
I looked away.
“I couldn’t leave it there.”
Dr. Bell shifted.
“I advised against implantation.”
I turned.
“You did?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“Another physician performed the transfer overseas.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
I looked at Mom.
“You left the country?”
“For nine days.”
“You told me you were visiting Aunt Rebecca.”
“I lied.”
I laughed without humor.
“At least we’re finally using the right word.”
Daniel said, “When she came back, she told me.”
“And you helped her.”
“I tried to convince her to end the pregnancy.”
Mom looked at him.
“He did.”
I stared at my husband.
That part surprised me.
Daniel continued.
“But once she refused, I couldn’t abandon her.”
“So you hid it.”
“Yes.”
“From me.”
“Yes.”
He did not defend himself.
Somehow that hurt too.
Dr. Bell checked Mom’s blood pressure again.
It was dangerously high.
He wanted her hospitalized.
Mom refused.
I snapped.
“You’re going.”
“Claire—”
“You don’t get to make another secret decision.”
She looked at me.
Then nodded.
We packed a bag.
Daniel carried it to the car.
As Mom slowly walked toward the front door, she stopped beside me.
“There’s one thing you still don’t know.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She glanced at Daniel.
Then at Lily.
“The embryo wasn’t offered to you because it belonged only to your father.”
I frowned.
Mom’s voice dropped.
“Margaret left a letter explaining the other half.”
Daniel went pale.
I turned toward him.
“You read it.”
He said nothing.
“Daniel.”
May you like
His silence answered me.
And Mom whispered, “Claire, the biological mother wasn’t Margaret.”
