Chapter 3 - THE PROMISE
I turned toward Mark so quickly my chair scraped across the floor.
“What did you promise her?”
Rachel realized what she had said.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You said he promised.”
“Promised what?”
David stepped between us.
“Claire, Emma is in the hospital.”
“This is not the time.”
“My daughter was poisoned.”
“This is exactly the time.”
Mark stood.
“Rachel contacted me after the first test.”
The room went silent.
“She knew about the milk?” I asked.
Mark nodded.
“How?”
“She sent me a message.”
“What kind of message?”
Mark handed his phone to Detective Hayes.
The message had arrived from an unknown number the night after the laboratory results came back.
It read, “Stop testing Emma’s drinks, or Claire learns how Emma really came into your family.”
I read it three times.
The words made no sense.
Emma had come into our family in a hospital room.
I had carried her for thirty-eight weeks.
I had endured seventeen hours of labor.
I remembered the first time she opened her eyes.
I remembered Mark cutting the cord.
There was no mystery about how she became our daughter.
“Is this some kind of joke?” I asked.
No one answered.
Rachel looked at the floor.
My mother and father had arrived in the hallway.
Mom stood behind the glass panel in the door, watching us.
When she saw the phone in my hand, she stopped walking.
That expression told me more than any confession.
“You know what this means,” I said.
Mom opened the door slowly.
“Claire, we should wait until Emma is safe.”
“Tell me now.”
Dad placed a hand on her shoulder.
“Linda, don’t.”
I stared at them.
“Why is everyone protecting a secret involving my child?”
Rachel began shaking.
“She isn’t only your child.”
David turned toward her.
“What are you talking about?”
Rachel’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“Emma came from my egg.”
I laughed once because the alternative was screaming.
“That’s impossible.”
My mother closed her eyes.
Seven years earlier, Mark and I had undergone fertility treatment after two miscarriages.
Our doctor told us an anonymous donor egg had been used after my own eggs repeatedly failed to develop.
I carried Emma.
I gave birth to her.
The donor’s identity had been protected by law.
At least that was what I had always been told.
I looked at my sister.
“You were the donor?”
Rachel nodded.
“I was nineteen.”
“You were twenty-six when Emma was born.”
Her lips parted.
Mom began crying.
Rachel looked directly at me.
May you like
“I wasn’t only the donor, Claire.”
“I was already pregnant.”
