Chapter 3
Natalie met Ryan in the hospital with lawyers present.
Not because anyone wanted drama.
Because nobody trusted the history enough for an informal conversation.
Mara remained with a temporary child-welfare placement arranged jointly with Natalie’s sister until Natalie was medically cleared.
Ryan had asked for the child to remain in his home.
Rebecca advised against moving too quickly.
“She met you twenty-four hours ago.”
“She called me Daddy.”
“Because somebody taught her the word.”
Ryan disliked that.
Rebecca continued.
“You are not emotionally entitled to skip the part where she doesn’t know you.”
That was harder to hear.
It was also correct.
Natalie looked tired when Ryan entered the hospital room.
She studied his face.
“So you really didn’t know.”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“I spent months thinking your wife was protecting you.”
Ryan sat down.
Emily did not attend.
Natalie explained what happened the night Mara entered the house.
She had decided to confront Ryan in person.
Not at his office.
Not publicly.
At home.
She brought Mara because the girl had begun asking why her father never responded.
Natalie parked near the end of the street because she was nervous.
They walked to the house.
The side gate had been left unlatched by landscapers.
Natalie reached the rear mudroom before realizing she had left the folder containing medical records in the car.
“I told Mara to sit on the back step.”
Ryan’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“I was gone maybe three minutes.”
“What happened?”
Natalie became emotional.
“When I reached the car, I got dizzy.”
She remembered opening the door.
Nothing after that.
Mara waited.
Then became frightened.
She tried the mudroom door.
It opened.
Inside, she heard voices somewhere else in the house.
She hid.
The loose utility panel led into the wall cavity.
By the time she wanted to leave, she could not find the same opening from inside.
Lily discovered her the following night.
“Why did you tell her I was her father?”
Natalie looked directly at him.
“Because I believed you were.”
“Before testing?”
“I had enough genetic evidence to believe it.”
Ryan nodded slowly.
“And the clinic?”
Natalie handed Rebecca a document.
Fairmont listed Ryan’s old donor code on Natalie’s treatment record.
Ryan stared at it.
“That code is mine.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“You’re certain?”
“I still remember it.”
Natalie whispered:
“I never asked for you.”
Ryan looked at her.
“What?”
“I chose an anonymous donor from a profile.”
The profile described a thirty-one-year-old man.
Six feet tall.
Brown eyes.
Engineering background.
No major genetic disorders.
Ryan had been twenty-nine when he donated and had a business degree.
“That isn’t my profile.”
“No.”
Natalie looked at him.
“That’s the problem.”
The sample used to conceive Mara carried Ryan’s donor code.
The profile Natalie consented to belonged to somebody else.
May you like
Ryan’s involvement had not merely continued after withdrawal.
Someone at Fairmont had substituted him into a treatment he was never supposed to be part of.
