Chapter 32 - The Message
That should have been the end of our story.
For a long time, I believed it was.
I had learned not to demand certainty from life.
Sophie was healthy.
Lily was preparing for college.
Our marriage was stronger than the first time we had stood in front of an altar.
The old hospital investigation was closed.
The program Sophie helped create had already assisted hundreds of patients.
The three stones remained beneath the oak tree.
Everything painful had finally found its place.
Then, on an ordinary Sunday morning, Sophie's phone rang.
She was making pancakes.
I was reading the newspaper.
Lily was upstairs packing for a campus tour.
Sophie glanced at the screen.
Her smile disappeared.
“What?”
She didn't answer.
“Sophie?”
She turned the phone toward me.
ST. VINCENT MEDICAL CENTER.
My stomach tightened automatically.
Even after all those years, some fears never completely left the body.
She answered.
“Hello?”
I watched her face.
“Yes.”
A pause.
“No, that's me.”
Another pause.
Her hand slowly lowered the spatula.
“When?”
I stood.
Sophie stared at the wall.
“Are you sure?”
Silence.
Then she whispered, “I understand.”
She ended the call.
I waited.
She didn't speak.
“Sophie.”
Her eyes found mine.
“It was the records department.”
My pulse accelerated.
“About what?”
“They were digitizing old pathology archives.”
I stared at her.
“And?”
“They found something attached to our file.”
“Our file?”
“The second pregnancy.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
Sophie sat down.
Her face had lost all color.
“A sealed genetic report.”
I moved beside her.
“From the tumor?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“From the baby.”
The room went silent.
I didn't understand.
“We already knew the tumor came from that pregnancy.”
“This isn't about the tumor.”
“What is it about?”
She swallowed.
“They said the report contains information they were legally required to disclose.”
“About what?”
She looked toward the stairs.
Lily's footsteps moved overhead.
Then Sophie whispered the sentence that opened a door neither of us knew still existed.
“They said we need to come to the hospital together.”
I stared at her.
“Why?”
Her fingers closed around mine.
“Because whatever they found…”
She took one shaking breath.
May you like
“…Dr. Brooks says we should not hear it over the phone.”
TOBE CONTINUED
