Mark froze.
“You know it?”
Carol’s lips trembled.
“It belonged to Dr. Grayson’s office.”
For a moment, no one understood.
Then David’s face changed.
“That’s impossible. The clinic closed twenty years ago.”
Carol shook her head.
“Not the main office. The private line. I remember because I called it so many times when I was trying to get pregnant.”
Mark looked between them.
“Who is Dr. Grayson?”
David’s voice went flat.
“The fertility doctor.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I looked at the phone again. Anonymous messages. Old secrets. A paternity test. A baby born into a trap set long before her first breath.
“Why would a fertility doctor send Mark messages about my pregnancy?” I asked.
No one answered.
But David’s jaw had tightened in a way that told me a terrible possibility had entered his mind.
He picked up the folded letter from the bed.
“I found this in my office safe last night,” he said. “I was looking for the old test results after Carol called. I forgot it was with them.”
He handed it to Mark.
Mark opened it.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then all the color left his face.
“What does it say?” Carol whispered.
Mark didn’t answer.
David took the letter and read aloud, his voice rough.
Mr. St. Clair,
You asked whether the donor records could ever be released. The answer remains no. However, due to irregularities discovered after Dr. Grayson’s retirement, we advise all former patients to seek independent genetic counseling. We regret that certain donor identification procedures used between 1987 and 1991 cannot be verified.
Carol gripped the rail of my bed.
“What irregularities?”
David folded the letter.
“I called after I received it. They refused to give details. They said the matter had been settled confidentially.”
Mark’s breathing quickened.
“Settled with whom?”
David looked at him.
“Families.”
The word settled over us like dust.
Families.
Not one mistake. Not one secret. Many.
Mark sat down hard in the chair.
“So I don’t know who my father is.”
David’s eyes filled.
“I’m your father.”
Mark stared at the floor.
“No. You’re the man who raised me.”
David absorbed that blow without flinching, but Carol made a small wounded sound.
I should have felt something for Mark then. Pity, maybe. Sadness.
But my daughter shifted in my arms and let out a tiny cry, and all my sympathy narrowed to the warm weight against my chest.