Chapter 18: The Envelope

Rowan's POV

The lab was on the sixth floor of a glass building on Michigan Avenue.

I had called Willa at the clinic and gotten Jodie, who said, "She's up to her elbows in a Labrador, call back."

So I went alone.

The woman at the desk asked for my photo identification and my wife's name.

She handed me a long white envelope with a clear window.

"Congratulations, Mr. Ashcroft," she said, because she did not know what was in it.

Neither did I.

I held it in the elevator for two floors without opening it.

I had told Willa I would wait for her.

I had meant it when I said it, with her asleep against me.

My hand had been on her stomach.

On the fourth floor, I opened it.

It was a single page.

At the top was my name, and under it hers, and a column of numbers I did not read.

Near the bottom there was one line in bold.

Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.

The elevator kept going down.

I do not remember deciding to sit.

I was on the floor of it, with my back against the mirror and the page flat on my knee.

I read the line again, and then I read my own name next to it.

It was a little thing to see in print.

For four years I had carried a number that said zero.

I had not known another number could lift it off me.

I put my hand over my mouth.

The elevator reached the third floor and opened onto an empty hall.

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