Chapter 3 - The Number Brooke Never Forgot
Nora arrived before dinner carrying a dented metal lockbox.
Brooke’s younger cousin had become the practical person in the family after Brooke’s mother died. She brought phone chargers to emergencies, granola bars to court dates and extra socks to hospitals.
She took one look at Brooke’s swollen cheek and stopped joking.
“Megan did that?”
Brooke nodded.
Nora’s expression hardened.
“Where is she?”
“Gone.”
“Good.”
Cole had stepped into the hallway to speak with his attorney.
Brooke unlocked the box.
Inside were tax returns, an expired passport, her mother’s death certificate and an envelope from Atlantic Donor Bank dated eight years earlier.
She had kept it because the donation had once felt important.
Sixteen eggs retrieved.
Fourteen mature.
Compensation received.
Anonymous donation completed.
Brooke unfolded the final storage statement.
The donor number appeared in the upper right corner.
B-417.
Nora read it over her shoulder.
“Is that the same number?”
Brooke didn’t answer.
She didn’t need to.
Nora sat beside her.
“When did Megan know you donated?”
“She knew then.”
“She knew the number?”
“I don’t know.”
Brooke remembered Megan sitting beside her after the retrieval with chicken soup balanced on her knees.
Megan had teased her about being “genetically marketable.”
At twenty-seven, Megan had still been the sister who sent rent money when Brooke was short and defended her when their father complained about her career choices.
Brooke had trusted her with almost everything.
A nurse entered to check Brooke’s blood pressure.
Brooke folded the paper immediately.
The instinct embarrassed her.
She had begun hiding documents from people she had known for years.
After the nurse left, Nora said, “Call the bank.”
Brooke did.
The representative could not discuss recipient information, but after verifying Brooke’s identity, she confirmed that her donor file still existed.
Brooke asked whether all of her eggs had been used in the original donation cycle.
There was a pause.
“I can tell you that a remaining lot was transferred within our network several years later.”
Brooke’s fingers tightened around the phone.
“To where?”
“I can send you a release form for your own donor-history information. Recipient identity would remain protected.”
“When was the lot transferred?”
The woman gave her a date.
Brooke wrote it down.
Nora looked at it.
The date was six days before the fertility clinic created the embryos Cole had been told came from an anonymous donor.
Cole returned just as Brooke ended the call.
She handed him the paper.
He read the date twice.
“I need my records.”
“Yes.”
“Megan handled our portal.”
“Then reset the password.”
Cole looked at Brooke.
For the first time since entering the hospital room, he appeared ashamed rather than angry.
“I should have done that years ago.”
Brooke’s voice stayed flat.
“Yes.”
That evening Cole requested his complete fertility records.
Brooke requested hers.
Then she sent an email to the surrogacy attorney who had reviewed her contract nine months earlier.
She did not accuse Megan of stealing a child.
She did not claim Owen was hers.
She wrote only what she could prove.
There may have been a material misrepresentation about the genetic source of the embryo transferred to me.
At the bottom she added one sentence.
Please tell me what I should do before anyone asks me to sign anything else.
Fifteen minutes later, the attorney replied.
Do not sign the post-delivery acknowledgment tomorrow morning.
Call me at 7:00 a.m.
That was when Brooke understood the first consequence.
May you like
The birth was over.
The arrangement was not.
