Chapter 9: My Sister's Daddy

Camille's room was at the end of the third-floor hall.

Margo waited outside with the clipboard in her arms.

"Do you want me to come in?"

"No," I said. "I want you to be the one person who saw it."

I pushed the door open.

Camille lay propped on the pillows with a monitor strapped across her belly, and the steady thump of a small heartbeat filled the room.

Jasper sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, building a tower out of her pill cups.

He looked up and waved.

"Hi, Mr. Caleb."

"Hi, Jasper."

Camille's eyes went to the folded page in my hand.

She did not speak.

I crossed the room and sat in the chair beside the bed.

"Where is Dexter?" I asked.

"Getting my mother a coffee."

"Good."

I unfolded the sheet and laid it on the blanket where she could read it.

She did not look down.

"Camille, whose baby is that?"

"Yours," she said quickly. "Caleb, that's a clerical error. They put the wrong name."

"It's your handwriting."

"They had me fill it out in pain."

"Five months ago? You were on your feet, and you came home and made me tea."

She said nothing.

Jasper put another cup on the tower.

"I'm going to be a big brother," he announced, to nobody. "Mommy said."

"I know," I said, because I could think of nothing else.

"My baby sister's daddy is my daddy," he went on happily. "Daddy said he'll teach her to ride a bike. Not you. You do the money."

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