Chapter 2 - THE EYES SHE REMEMBERED
“Adrian?”
Emma Carter had said my name thousands of times once.
Laughing.
Angry.
Half-asleep against my shoulder.
Whispering it in the dark when we were still stupid enough to believe wanting a future guaranteed we would get one.
But she had never said it the way she did in that emergency room.
Like seeing me hurt.
Like seeing Caleb hurt worse.
Her eyes dropped to the baby in my arms again.
Then everything professional in her took over.
“How long has he been lethargic?”
My mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Three years.
I had imagined what I would say if I ever saw Emma again.
Apparently none of those imagined speeches survived a feverish six-month-old.
“About forty minutes.”
“Highest temperature?”
“104.1.”
“Vomiting?”
“No.”
“Wet diapers?”
“Fewer today.”
“Any cough?”
“Not much.”
Emma stepped closer.
“Can I touch him?”
The question nearly broke something in me.
She had once known every scar on my body.
Now she was asking permission to touch my son.
“Yes.”
Her hand went gently behind Caleb’s neck.
Then to his chest.
“Caleb?”
His eyes opened weakly.
Emma froze.
Not medically.
Personally.
Her fingers stopped.
Those gray-blue eyes stared directly into hers.
Caleb had a strange amber streak in his right iris.
I had noticed it when he was two months old.
His pediatrician called it harmless sectoral pigmentation.
Emma stared at that streak.
Her face lost color.
Then she looked behind Caleb’s right ear.
“What are you doing?”
She brushed aside his soft dark hair.
A tiny crescent-shaped mark sat beneath the hairline.
Emma stepped back as if burned.
“Where did you get him?”
My fear became anger again.
“He’s my son.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Connie appeared with a nurse and wheelchair.
“Dr. Carter, Trauma Two is open.”
Emma’s eyes remained on Caleb.
“Now.”
I followed them through double doors.
A nurse reached for my son.
My arms tightened automatically.
“Mr. Vale, we need to put him on the bed.”
“I’m staying.”
Emma looked at me.
“You can stay if you don’t interfere.”
I almost laughed.
Three years apart and she still spoke to me like that.
“Fine.”
Caleb was placed beneath bright lights.
Oxygen monitor.
Blood pressure.
IV.
Urine catheter.
Blood draws.
Every time he whimpered, my hands clenched.
Emma worked quickly, quietly, speaking to the nurses in that precise tone I remembered from when she studied late into the night at my apartment.
She had been finishing pediatric residency when we met.
Now her badge read:
EMMA CARTER, MD
PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY MEDICINE
Of course she had made it.
She had always been too good to disappear forever.
“His perfusion is slow,” she said.
A nurse nodded.
“We’re getting cultures.”
“Start fluids.”
I moved closer.
“What do you think it is?”
“Right now? Fever with concerning lethargy.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It tells you I’m not guessing before the tests come back.”
My jaw tightened.
Emma looked directly at me.
“This is not one of your meetings, Adrian.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Her voice lowered.
“You cannot intimidate an infection into leaving your child.”
That shut me up.
Twenty minutes later, Caleb cried.
Loudly.
Furiously.
The sound was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard.
Emma’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“So that’s good?”
“Better than limp.”
She examined him again.
Then asked, “Was he born full-term?”
“Thirty-eight weeks.”
“Complications?”
“No.”
“Gestational carrier?”
My chest tightened.
I had written it on the form.
“Yes.”
Emma’s face became unreadable.
“Egg donor?”
“Yes.”
She looked at me sharply.
“Anonymous?”
“Yes.”
“Clinic?”
“Beacon Reproductive.”
Everything stopped.
Emma gripped the edge of the counter.
“What?”
“Emma?”
“What donor code?”
I stared at her.
“How the hell would I know?”
“You would have paperwork.”
“My mother handled most of it.”
Of course.
My mother had arranged the carrier after I told her I wanted a child but had no intention of marrying.
Emma closed her eyes briefly.
“Get your phone.”
“What?”
“Find the embryo transfer record.”
“I’m not going through fertility paperwork while my son is sick.”
“If I’m right, you are.”
Something in her face scared me.
More than the hospital.
More than Caleb’s fever.
I opened the secure family documents my attorney kept in cloud storage.
Ten minutes later, I found the transfer certificate.
Gestational carrier: Rebecca Sloan.
Intended parent: Adrian Vale.
Source: Beacon Reproductive Center.
Embryo identification:
CV-04.
Emma sat down.
Actually sat.
“Emma.”
Her lips parted.
“No.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
“CV.”
“Yes.”
“What do you think it means?”
I stared.
She whispered, “Carter-Vale.”
The room went silent.
I almost laughed because the alternative was understanding.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Her voice shook.
“Our embryos were labeled CV.”
I could hear the monitor beside Caleb.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
“We made four viable embryos.”
Three years and eight months earlier, Emma and I had undergone fertility preservation because we planned to marry and have children later.
Emma had always wanted three.
I had told her one baby was enough chaos.
She told me I was an only-child stereotype.
Then my brother Thomas was murdered.
Then everything between us burned down.
“You told me they were destroyed,” I said.
Emma stared at me.
“You told me they were destroyed.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“After that night, your attorney sent paperwork saying you had withdrawn consent for future use.”
“I never sent that.”
“My clinic notice said the embryos were discarded after both parties signed.”
“I signed nothing.”
Neither of us moved.
Then Caleb made a weak sound.
Emma looked at him.
At those eyes.
That amber streak.
She whispered, “My father had that.”
My throat closed.
“What?”
“The amber mark.”
She touched beneath her own right eye.
“My father had the exact same iris pattern.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
Then she looked at the crescent behind Caleb’s ear.
“My brother has that mark.”
My heart began pounding.
Coincidence.
It had to be.
“You’re saying Caleb is yours?”
“I’m saying something is very wrong.”
Before I could answer, a nurse hurried in carrying results.
Emma took them.
Her entire posture changed back to doctor.
“Urine is strongly positive.”
“What?”
“We may be dealing with a kidney infection.”
“Is he going to be okay?”
“We caught it.”
Her eyes met mine.
“He needs IV antibiotics and admission, but right now he is responding.”
My knees nearly gave out.
I grabbed the bed rail.
Caleb cried again when the nurse adjusted his IV.
I put one hand over my face.
For the first time in years, I did not care who saw me terrified.
Emma stood on the opposite side of his bed.
Then, very slowly, she placed her hand against Caleb’s tiny foot.
He kicked weakly.
She laughed.
And cried.
One tear.
She wiped it immediately.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
Her eyes snapped to mine.
“What?”
“Don’t pretend this doesn’t affect you.”
Anger flashed.
“You lost the right to tell me what I feel.”
There it was.
Three years vanished.
The night I had called her a traitor.
The night Thomas’s blood was still drying beneath my fingernails.
The night I believed evidence showing Emma had leaked my brother’s location.
I had thrown her out.
Refused to listen.
Told her if she ever came near my family again, I would treat her like an enemy.
Unforgivable.
I deserved the way she looked at me.
“Emma.”
“No.”
She stepped back.
“We deal with Caleb first.”
“Then?”
Her eyes moved to my son.
“Then we find out whose child he really is.”
At 3:14 in the morning, a lab technician entered to collect cheek swabs.
Mine.
Emma’s.
Caleb’s.
I signed the authorization.
Emma signed hers.
May you like
And as the technician sealed all three samples, I realized money had finally found something it could not buy me out of.
By morning, I might learn that the woman I had driven out of my life three years earlier had unknowingly become the mother of my son.
