“I’ll cooperate,” she repeated.
Connor’s face hardened into something cold and familiar. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Melinda looked down at Elliot.
“I think I finally do.”
I saw then that she was not brave in the way people are brave in movies. She did not lift her chin dramatically. She did not deliver some perfect line. She looked terrified. Her hands shook. Her eyes were swollen. Her guilt sat plainly on her face.
But she still stood there.
Sometimes courage was only the decision not to lie one more time.
Kenneth handed me a single sheet. “This is the temporary filing summary. Don’t read it all right now unless you want to.”
I almost smiled. “You know me better than that.”
“I do,” he said.
I read it.
Not every word. Just enough.
My name. Connor’s name. The clinic network. Consent irregularities. Preservation of records. Genetic testing. Temporary restrictions.
Then another phrase caught my eye.
Potential third-party involvement.
I looked up.
“Kenneth.”
He knew what I had seen.
“We need to discuss that separately.”
Connor’s eyes darted toward the paper. “What third party?”
Kenneth did not answer.
Melinda, however, went still.
The baby shifted in her arms.
I noticed.
Doctors notice tiny changes.
A tightening jaw. A skipped breath. A flicker of fear.
“Melinda,” I said, “who else knew?”
She closed her eyes.
Connor muttered, “Don’t.”
Kenneth turned fully toward her. “Mrs. Fleming, if someone else assisted in falsifying consent documents, now is the time to say so.”
Mrs. Fleming.
The title landed with an unexpected sting. Not because I wanted Connor back. I did not. The thought felt almost absurd now.
But I had once been Mrs. Fleming. I had once answered to that name in waiting rooms and holiday cards and mortgage documents. I had once thought it meant chosen.
Melinda shifted Elliot to her other shoulder.
“There was someone at the clinic,” she said.
Kenneth’s expression did not change, but I felt his attention sharpen.
“Name?” he asked.
“I don’t know her full name. Connor called her Dana.”
Connor’s face went pale.
Not angry pale.
Afraid pale.
Kenneth wrote the name down. “Dana.”
I frowned.
Something about the name brushed against memory.
A receptionist? A nurse? A coordinator?
During fertility treatment, there had been so many faces. Kind faces. Tired faces. Efficient faces. People who knew the most intimate details of my body while remaining almost strangers.
