Chapter 7 - JAMES'S SIGNATURE
I stepped away from James.
“No.”
Reeves coughed painfully.
James stared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“You said my mother did it.”
“She arranged it.”
Reeves struggled for breath.
“But someone had to sign the authorization after Emily was sedated.”
James looked at me.
I saw panic in his eyes.
“I never signed anything like that.”
Reeves closed his eyes.
“You signed a substitution authorization.”
“That was for our embryos.”
“The document did not specify whose embryo could be substituted.”
James went pale.
I remembered the morning of the transfer.
I had been given medication because I was anxious.
James had been in Chicago.
Or at least I believed he had been.
“Where were you?”
I asked.
James looked at me.
“What?”
“The day Lily’s embryo was transferred.”
“You know where I was.”
“Chicago.”
“Yes.”
Reeves shook his head weakly.
“No.”
My skin turned cold.
James stared at him.
“Stop.”
“You were in my office at six-thirty that morning.”
I stopped hearing the hospital machines.
I only heard my husband breathing.
“You told me you were at the airport.”
James looked at me.
“I was.”
“Before that?”
His silence answered.
I backed away.
“Before that, James?”
He lowered his head.
“I met Reeves.”
My chest hurt.
“Why?”
“My mother called me.”
“When?”
“The night before.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said one of our embryos had become nonviable.”
I looked at Reeves.
He nodded.
“That part was true.”
James continued quickly.
“She told me there was another embryo available through an anonymous donation program.”
I almost laughed.
“Anonymous?”
“That is what I was told.”
“You signed permission.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“I thought I was saving our chance to have a baby.”
“You let a doctor put another person’s embryo inside my body.”
“I thought we would tell you afterward.”
“You thought?”
“I was afraid you would say no.”
The cruelty of that sentence landed slowly.
He had not hidden it because he thought I would agree.
He had hidden it because he knew I might refuse.
“You took away my choice.”
James’s face collapsed.
“Yes.”
Reeves began crying again.
“James did not know the embryo belonged to Charles and Margaret.”
I looked at him.
“That changes less than you think.”
He nodded.
“I know.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead I asked, “When did James learn the truth?”
Reeves looked at him.
James whispered, “Emily.”
I turned toward my husband.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
The floor disappeared beneath me.
Two years.
Not tonight.
Not six minutes ago.
Two years.
“You knew?”
“I learned there had been a substitution.”
“You knew Margaret was Lily’s biological mother?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
James could not answer.
I felt something inside me go quiet.
“Did you know Lily might not be biologically ours?”
“Yes.”
“And every day for two years, you looked at me and said nothing.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Never use that word again.”
A monitor beside Reeves began beeping faster.
The nurse entered.
“You need to leave.”
I turned toward the door.
Reeves called my name.
“Emily.”
I stopped.
“There is a file.”
I looked back.
“What file?”
“Storage unit 318.”
“Where?”
He whispered the name of a private records facility across town.
“Everything Margaret made me hide is there.”
The nurse pushed us out.
The door closed behind us.
James reached for me.
I pulled away.
Then Officer Daniels came running down the hallway.
“Mrs. Whitmore.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“We reviewed the ballroom footage.”
Her expression told me something else had happened.
“Margaret Whitmore is gone.”
James stared at her.
“She was with police.”
“She left before officers could formally detain her.”
“How?”
Daniels looked at Martin.
“With help from someone who had access to the service elevator.”
Martin went pale.
Daniels continued.
“And security footage shows Margaret leaving with a key in her hand.”
My heart stopped.
May you like
“What kind of key?”
“A storage key.”
