Chapter 12: Nobody's Baby

The third sheet was a printed form with a clinic stamp in the corner.

Rodrigo held it under the green lamp so Valeria could read over his arm.

*Embryo transfer record. Patient: B. Quiroz. Transfer date: five months ago.*

Under that were two lines of codes.

*Sperm source: donor D-31, anonymous.*

*Label on tube to read: R. Escalante. Per A.E.*

Rodrigo read it three times.

Then he put the page down on the desk.

"I never gave a sample," he said.

"Not once?"

"My mother said the clinic had my results from before the wedding."

"She said they'd use those. She said it was simpler."

"There was nothing to use," Valeria said. "Your sample was never taken."

"No."

"She used a stranger."

"She used a stranger and wrote my name on the tube," Rodrigo said.

He laughed once, a short ugly sound.

Valeria took out her phone.

She photographed the lab report with her name and the lab report with his.

She photographed the yellow note and the transfer record, each page flat under the lamp.

Her hands were quick and steady.

It was the strangest thing she had ever felt, to be so calm and so furious at once.

The clicks were loud in the empty study.

"Put it back," she whispered. "Everything. Exactly how it was."

Rodrigo slid the folders onto the lowest shelf in the order they had come.

He closed the steel door and hung the painting on its hook.

The clock in the hall struck eight.

Outside, tires crunched on the drive, and a car door shut.

"Mass ended early," Rodrigo said.

"She isn't supposed to be here until nine."

"She's never early."

"She is today."

They both heard the front door, and then, very distinctly, heels on the marble.

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