Chapter 5 - WHAT BRANDON HID IN THE STORAGE UNIT
The second embryo did not exist in a tank.
It existed in a receipt.
That was how Douglas found it.
Not through Northpoint.
Not through the attorney general.
Through a credit card statement Brandon had forgotten to hide.
Three years earlier, eight months before our divorce was final, Brandon paid $1,850 to a company called Meridian Cryogenic Transport.
The description was listed as “medical specimen relocation.”
Douglas called me at 6:12 on a Tuesday morning.
“I found something.”
I was making coffee.
I stopped with the mug beneath the machine.
“What?”
“Do you remember ever authorizing transfer of reproductive material from Northpoint to another facility?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then get dressed.”
Forty minutes later, I was in his office.
He had six monitors, three legal pads, and a conference table that looked as though somebody had dropped an entire divorce case on it from a helicopter.
He handed me the statement.
I saw Brandon's name.
Meridian Cryogenic Transport.
Then the date.
I sat down.
“That was before he moved out.”
“Correct.”
“He told me we had nothing left.”
“I know.”
“Where did it go?”
“We subpoenaed Meridian.”
“And?”
“They transferred a cryopreserved embryo from Northpoint to a private storage facility outside Milwaukee.”
“Why Milwaukee?”
“No idea.”
“Is it still there?”
Douglas stared at me.
“That facility transferred it again.”
My skin prickled.
“To where?”
“A clinic in Denver.”
I stood.
“Why?”
“We're waiting for records.”
I started pacing.
A doctor learns to be suspicious of unexplained movement.
Patients don't get transferred three times without a reason.
Biological material doesn't cross state lines by accident.
Somebody had moved that embryo deliberately.
Quietly.
Using money from an account attached to Brandon.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
Douglas leaned back.
“I try not to think ahead of evidence.”
“You're a lawyer. You think ahead of everything.”
He sighed.
“I think Brandon was preserving an option.”
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
That answer frightened me.
By noon, the Denver clinic had acknowledged the subpoena.
By six that evening, Brandon had filed an emergency motion accusing me of harassment.
The irony would have been funny if I weren't exhausted.
He claimed I was attempting to destabilize Noah's home.
He claimed I had become fixated on “genetic ownership.”
He claimed my position as a physician gave me influence over medical records.
He claimed Lauren was emotionally unstable because of pressure from my attorneys.
And then he said something that finally made Lauren choose a side.
He filed an affidavit stating she had independently obtained the embryo and had misrepresented its origin to him.
In other words, he blamed her.
Completely.
The woman he supposedly loved.
The mother he publicly displayed as proof of his “real family.”
He put her name beneath the bus and drove over it with legal stationery.
Lauren called me that night.
I almost didn't answer.
I stared at her name until the final ring.
Then I picked up.
“What?”
She was crying.
“I'm sorry.”
“That's becoming a habit.”
“He's saying I did everything.”
“I know.”
“I didn't.”
“You participated in enough.”
“I know.”
Silence.
Then she said, “I have something.”
I sat straighter.
“What?”
“An old phone.”
Every nerve in my body sharpened.
“What old phone?”
“The one I used when we first…”
She couldn't say affair.
I waited.
“When you first started sleeping with my husband?”
“Yes.”
“What is on it?”
“Messages.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“What kind?”
“From Brandon.”
“About the embryo?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Have you given it to your attorney?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because there's something on it that makes me look terrible too.”
I almost laughed.
“Lauren, you slept with my husband and carried an embryo taken without my consent. We're past protecting your image.”
“I know.”
“Then turn it over.”
“I wanted you to see it first.”
“No.”
She went quiet.
I continued.
“You don't get to make me responsible for deciding whether evidence exists.”
“Gwen—”
“Give it to your lawyer. Tonight.”
She did.
By morning, Douglas had a forensic copy.
He called me to his office again.
This time, Lauren was there.
So was her attorney.
The phone sat in a clear evidence bag.
Douglas had printed selected messages.
He warned me before I read them.
“I need you to understand something.”
“What?”
“You don't have to read every line.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don't.”
“I spent seven years living inside a lie. I'm done letting other people decide which parts I can survive.”
He nodded.
Then slid the pages toward me.
The first messages were mundane.
Flirtation.
Hotel plans.
Complaints about me.
Brandon telling Lauren I was cold.
Unavailable.
Married to my career.
Lauren saying I deserved someone more compatible.
Then the messages changed.
BRANDON:
There is one remaining embryo.
LAUREN:
Yours and Gwen's?
BRANDON:
Legally ours.
LAUREN:
Does she want it?
BRANDON:
She wants the idea of motherhood. Not reality.
I stopped.
Lauren whispered, “Keep reading.”
I wanted to hate her voice.
Instead I kept reading.
LAUREN:
You can't just use it without her.
BRANDON:
She signed disposition forms years ago.
LAUREN:
Are you sure?
BRANDON:
Yes.
The next exchange was six weeks later.
LAUREN:
The clinic asked why Gwen isn't coming in.
BRANDON:
I handled it.
LAUREN:
How?
BRANDON:
Don't worry about paperwork.
Lauren's hands were shaking beside me.
Then came the message from when she was twenty-nine weeks pregnant.
LAUREN:
I found the Northpoint packet.
BRANDON:
What packet?
LAUREN:
It says GWENDOLYN ABERNATHY — OOCYTE SOURCE.
BRANDON:
Call me.
LAUREN:
You said it was a donor.
BRANDON:
Call me.
LAUREN:
Did Gwen know?
No response for eleven minutes.
Then:
BRANDON:
It changes nothing.
Lauren had replied:
IT CHANGES EVERYTHING.
I pushed back from the table.
My stomach turned.
There were more.
Lauren asking whether my signature was real.
Brandon refusing to answer.
Lauren threatening to tell me.
Brandon reminding her that if the transfer became disputed, she might lose the baby.
Then one line that made me understand why she stayed silent.
BRANDON:
If Gwen finds out, she will take him from you.
Lauren whispered, “I believed him.”
I looked at her.
“You chose to.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
That mattered.
Not enough for forgiveness.
But it mattered.
Douglas slid another page forward.
“This is the one we think matters most.”
The date was three months after Noah's birth.
Lauren had written:
She deserves to know.
Brandon answered:
No. Gwen had seven years to give me a family. She failed.
Lauren:
THIS IS HER BIOLOGICAL CHILD.
Brandon:
Biology isn't possession.
Lauren:
YOU FORGED HER NAME.
There was a twenty-minute gap.
Then Brandon responded.
I read the sentence once.
Then again.
I don't care. She would have said no, and I wasn't letting her waste the last good embryo.
The room became unbearably quiet.
Douglas said, “That's as close to a written admission as we're likely to get.”
But another message followed.
Lauren:
What about the other one?
Brandon:
Safe.
My heart stopped.
I looked up.
“The other embryo.”
Douglas nodded.
Lauren began crying again.
“I didn't know what he meant.”
“You never asked?”
“I did.”
She pointed to the next message.
Lauren:
Safe where?
Brandon:
Where Gwen can never destroy it out of spite.
I stood.
The words blurred.
Out of spite.
He had convinced himself I was the danger.
After forging my signature.
After stealing my father's money.
After transferring my embryo into my best friend.
Douglas's assistant appeared in the doorway.
“Sorry. Denver called.”
Every person in the room turned.
Douglas stood.
“And?”
She handed him a printed email.
I watched his eyes move across the page.
Then stop.
“What?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“The second embryo arrived at Denver Reproductive Partners twenty-six months ago.”
My hands went cold.
“Is it still there?”
“No.”
The room tilted.
“What happened to it?”
Douglas kept reading.
“It was transferred.”
Lauren whispered, “To who?”
His face changed.
Not shock.
Something worse.
Disbelief.
“Douglas.”
He finally looked up.
“The patient listed on the transfer isn't Lauren.”
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“Then who?”
He handed me the page.
There was a name.
A woman's name I had never seen before.
ELIZABETH MARSH.
Transfer outcome:
CLINICAL PREGNANCY.
LIVE BIRTH.
I looked at Douglas.
My voice barely worked.
“You're telling me there is another child?”
He nodded.
Lauren covered her mouth.
I stared at the record.
A live birth.
Another embryo.
Another child created from my egg.
Somewhere in the world.
I sank into the chair.
“Where?”
Douglas looked down at the file.
“Denver.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen months.”
My chest tightened.
Just two months older than Noah.
Brandon had transferred both embryos.
To two different women.
At nearly the same time.
I thought the worst truth was that he had stolen one chance at motherhood from me.
May you like
I had been wrong.
He had stolen two.
