Chapter 2 - THE TEST RESULTS HE BURIED
Hospital security moved us into a private consultation room before the confrontation frightened the children in the waiting area.
Lucas sat near the door. Melinda remained beside the stroller, one hand resting protectively on Theo’s blanket.
Connor paced.
“This man is unstable,” he said. “He had a brief relationship with Melinda and became obsessed.”
Lucas looked at her.
“Is that what you told him?”
Melinda stared at the floor.
Connor turned toward me. “Why are you even involved?”
“You involved me when you announced to an entire hospital that I couldn’t give you a real family.”
His jaw tightened.
“I stated a fact.”
“No. You repeated a diagnosis that was never mine.”
For the first time, he stopped moving.
Three weeks earlier, a fertility specialist named Dr. Rachel Moore had contacted me after finding my name in an internal audit. The clinic where Connor and I had undergone treatment was being investigated for altered laboratory reports.
My original records had been recovered from an archived server.
The results I received during my marriage showed diminished ovarian reserve and repeatedly described my chances of conceiving as extremely poor.
The original results showed normal ovarian function for my age.
Connor’s original analysis showed severe non-obstructive azoospermia.
No sperm.
Not a low count. Not poor movement.
None.
I placed the recovered reports on the table.
Melinda began to cry harder.
Connor did not look at them.
“You knew,” I said.
“I knew there were concerns.”
“You knew you were infertile.”
“That word is medically irresponsible.”
“I’m a physician. Don’t lecture me about the word.”
Lucas watched us carefully.
Melinda whispered, “Kirsten, I’m sorry.”
I turned toward her.
During my marriage, Melinda had attended appointments with me whenever Connor was too busy. She had brought coffee after procedures and sat beside me while I blamed my body.
At the time, she worked as the fertility clinic’s patient services coordinator.
She had access to our records.
“You changed my results.”
“I didn’t perform the tests.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Her mouth trembled.
“Connor said he needed time.”
“For what?”
Connor answered.
“To decide whether I could stay in a marriage that had become nothing but appointments, schedules, and disappointment.”
I stared at him.
“You let me believe I was the problem because you were deciding whether I was worth keeping.”
He looked offended by the wording.
“We were both miserable.”
“You told me I had chosen my career over motherhood.”
“You were never home.”
“I was working extra shifts to pay for treatments you knew I didn’t need.”
Melinda covered her face.
Lucas leaned forward.
“Where does my child fit into this?”
Connor turned on him.
“He doesn’t belong to you just because of a laboratory report.”
“He lived with me for the first three weeks of his life.”
I looked at Melinda.
She wiped her cheeks.
“Lucas and I were together briefly after Connor moved out of Kirsten’s house.”
Connor corrected her immediately. “We were separated.”
“You were still married,” I said.
He ignored me.
Melinda continued.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I thought Lucas was the father. Then Connor came back.”
“Why?” Lucas asked.
Her eyes shifted toward Connor.
“He said we could finally have the life we talked about.”
Lucas laughed bitterly.
“You told me you had never loved him.”
“I was scared.”
“Of raising a child with a firefighter instead of a man with a trust fund?”
Melinda flinched.
Connor stepped closer to Lucas.
“Watch how you speak to her.”
Lucas stood.
“And you watch how you speak about my son.”
Security opened the door again before either man moved closer.
A woman entered wearing a dark green coat and pearls.
Patricia Fleming.
Connor’s mother.
She looked at Lucas, the DNA reports, and the stroller.
Then she looked at me.
“This is your doing.”
I almost admired how quickly she identified the person least willing to fear her.
“You knew too,” I said.
Patricia set her handbag on the table.
“I knew there was an unpleasant dispute.”
Lucas rose.
“You paid me seventy-five thousand dollars to surrender my parental rights.”
Connor stared at his mother.
Melinda went still.
Patricia’s expression barely shifted.
Lucas placed a bank record beside the DNA reports.
“The money came from the Fleming Family Trust.”
Connor looked from the record to Patricia.
“You told me he took ten thousand dollars and disappeared.”
Patricia removed her gloves.
“I told you what was necessary to protect this family.”
The room fell silent.
May you like
Connor had helped construct the lie.
But his mother had designed the reason for it.
