Chapter 2 - The Test He Wouldn’t Explain
I took Fern out of Stellan’s arms so fast she woke up crying.
“No.”
He did not move toward me.
“Selene.”
“No. You don’t get to say something like that and stand there like we’re discussing the weather.”
Fern buried her face in my neck.
I held her tighter.
“You disappeared.”
“I know.”
“You left a note.”
“I know.”
“I spent months thinking I had been stupid enough to trust a stranger, then I found out I was pregnant, then I did all of it alone.”
His face did not change, but his hand closed slowly over the edge of the desk.
“I did not know you were pregnant.”
“Convenient.”
“It isn’t.”
I laughed because the alternative was crying in front of a man whose name made police officers lower their voices.
“You said you were told a child died. How?”
Stellan looked toward the closed office door.
“Not here.”
“This is your office.”
“That is why not here.”
That answer frightened me more than anything else he had said.
A knock came at the door.
Mrs. Thornbury entered carrying a small medical case.
She stopped when she saw Fern in my arms.
Then she saw the old paper on Stellan’s desk.
Her face changed.
“Sir,” she said carefully, “Dr. Mercer is downstairs.”
I looked at Stellan.
“You already called a doctor?”
“A lab physician.”
“For a paternity test?”
“Yes.”
“Without asking me?”
“I was going to ask.”
“You sent for him before I agreed.”
“I don’t waste time.”
“Congratulations.” I stood. “I do.”
I headed for the door.
Fern coughed.
It was a small sound.
Then another.
Her chest pulled inward under her little sweater.
I stopped.
“No, no, no.”
I sat on the floor before my knees gave out.
“Fern. Baby. Look at me.”
Her breathing turned thin and fast.
Stellan was beside me immediately.
“What does she need?”
“Her medicine. My bag.”
Mrs. Thornbury was already moving.
She came back with the inhalation vial and the portable nebulizer I carried everywhere.
Stellan knelt without caring about his suit.
“Tell me what to do.”
“Hold the mask.”
He did.
Fern fought it at first, then settled when she saw his face.
That scared me in a completely different way.
Dr. Marcus Mercer entered two minutes later.
He was in his sixties, silver-haired, clean hands, expensive watch.
He checked Fern’s oxygen level and listened to her lungs.
“Reactive airway disease?” he asked.
“That’s what the NICU pulmonologist said.”
“Which hospital?”
“Saint Catherine’s.”
The room went quiet.
Mercer looked at Stellan.
Stellan looked at Mrs. Thornbury.
I caught it.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Mercer said.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Rich-person silence. Everybody looks at everybody, then the poor woman gets told it’s nothing.”
Mrs. Thornbury’s mouth twitched despite herself.
Stellan almost smiled.
Mercer did not.
“I need a blood sample from Fern,” he said.
“For the test?”
“For the paternity test and a full metabolic panel. Her breathing history concerns me.”
I hesitated.
Stellan said, “You can choose another lab.”
I looked at him.
“I can?”
“Yes.”
“Outside your control?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
That mattered.
I agreed to two samples. One for Mercer. One sealed for an independent lab I picked on my phone.
When Mercer rolled up Fern’s sleeve, Mrs. Thornbury saw the faded hospital bracelet still tied to the zipper of my diaper bag.
She grabbed it.
“Where did you get this?”
I pulled the bag back.
“It was Fern’s NICU bracelet.”
Mrs. Thornbury stared at the number.
Her lips went white.
Stellan stood.
“What is it?”
She looked at him with something I had never seen on her face before.
Fear.
“That number was supposed to be destroyed.”
I felt the room close around me.
“Why?” I asked.
Mrs. Thornbury looked at Fern.
Then whispered, “Because eleven months ago, that bracelet belonged to a baby who was declared dead.”
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