Chapter 3: What the Hospital Told Him
I did not take the envelope.
Not yet.
Lily was still in the room.
She was standing very still near the window, her arms wrapped around herself, watching the two of us the way a child watches adults argue — trying to understand something she already senses is about her.
"Lily," I said carefully.
"Would you give us a few minutes?"
She looked at Paul.
He gave her a small nod.
She picked up her bag and walked out without a word.
The door clicked shut behind her.
The room felt smaller without her in it.
Or maybe it felt larger.
I couldn't tell.
Everything had gone strange.
Paul set the envelope on my desk.
I stared at it.
My name in his handwriting — the same handwriting I had seen on birthday cards and grocery lists and the note he left me the morning Maggie was admitted.
*I'll be right there.
I love you both.*
"Start talking," I said.
He sat down in the chair across from my desk.
The chair Lily had just been sitting in.
He pressed both hands flat on his knees.
"The night Maggie was admitted," he said, "a doctor pulled me aside.
You were with her.
You wouldn't leave her side and I didn't want to pull you away."
"What doctor?"
"His name was Chen.
Dr.
Raymond Chen." He paused.
"He told me that the tests had flagged something.
A genetic marker.
Something rare."
I felt the air leave my chest.
"You never told me that."
"He said it wasn't certain.
He said they needed more time.
And then Maggie—" His voice broke.
He stopped.
Started again.
"After she was gone, I couldn't.
I couldn't hand you one more thing to carry."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"I know."
"Paul.
That was not your decision."
"I know." He looked up.
"I was wrong.
I have known I was wrong for eight years."
I walked to the window.
Outside, the school courtyard was empty.
A plastic bag drifted across the concrete.
I watched it until it disappeared around the corner of the building.
"What does any of this have to do with Lily?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Dr.
Chen had a daughter," he said.
"She was born the same year as Maggie.
Same month, actually.
November."
I turned around slowly.
"He reached out to me two years after Maggie passed," Paul continued.
"He said his wife had left.
That he was raising his daughter alone.
That she — that Lily — had been showing the same marker."
My hand found the back of my chair.
"He contacted you."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"I was trying to protect you."
"From what?" My voice came out louder than I intended.
"From a little girl who needed help?
From knowing that someone out there might—" I stopped.
I pressed my fingers against my mouth.
Paul stood up.
"I didn't know how to explain it.
I didn't know what it meant.
I still don't know what it means.
I only know that when I first saw her, I—"
"You saw Maggie."
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
I picked up the envelope.
The paper was soft with age, the seal long since dried and resealed with tape.
I worked the flap open carefully, the way you open something you're not sure you want to read.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
A hospital letterhead.
A date from eight years ago.
And at the bottom, two names listed under the heading: *Genetic Familial Match — Preliminary.*
Maggie's name.
And below it, a name I didn't recognize.
*Chen, Lily M.*
The floor seemed to tilt.
"She's not just a girl who looks like Maggie," I said.
The words came out very quietly.
Paul shook his head.
"She's related to her," I said.
"Somehow.
Biologically."
"That's what the preliminary test suggested," he said.
"I never followed up.
I was afraid of what a full test would show."
I set the paper down on the desk.
I looked at it for a long time.
"Does Lily know any of this?"
"No," Paul said.
"Her father never told her.
He only told me."
"Where is her father now?"
May you like
Paul's jaw tightened.
"That," he said, "is the part I don't know how to tell you."
