Chapter 5: What Robert Finch Carried for Twenty Years
I didn't sleep.
I sat in the chair beside Diane's bed until the sky outside the window went from black to gray to the pale, uncertain color of early morning.
Diane slept.
Lucy slept.
I watched them both and thought about the word *recently* until it lost its shape.
At seven, Diane woke.
She looked at me with the disoriented expression of someone who had forgotten, for one merciful second, where they were.
Then she remembered.
"You stayed," she said.
"I stayed."
She looked at Lucy.
The baby was awake, making small unfocused movements with her hands.
"Has anyone — is Michael still here?"
"He's in the waiting room.
I asked him to stay there."
She nodded slowly.
"He knew about me, didn't he.
Before last night."
"Yes."
She absorbed that.
"For how long?"
"Four years."
Her jaw tightened.
She didn't say anything.
She reached into the bassinet and lifted Lucy with the careful, slightly terrified confidence of a brand-new mother, and held her against her chest.
"My mother wrote him a letter," Diane said.
"In 2019.
Before she got sick.
She told me she'd sent it but never heard back."
"He never mentioned a letter."
"No." Her voice was flat.
"He wouldn't."
At eight-fifteen, I drove to the address Robert Finch had sent me.
A diner twelve minutes from the hospital.
Booths with red vinyl seats, the smell of coffee and bacon, a morning news program playing silently on a screen above the counter.
He was already there.
A man in his late sixties, gray-haired, wearing a jacket that looked like it had been pressed carefully for the occasion.
He stood when he saw me.
"Mrs.
Kowalski." He put out his hand.
"Thank you for coming."
I shook it.
I sat down across from him.
A waitress appeared and I asked for coffee and she disappeared again.
"You said he didn't act alone," I said.
No preamble.
No small talk.
Finch wrapped both hands around his mug.
"No.
He didn't."
"Who else?"
He looked at me carefully.
"Before I answer that, I want you to understand something.
I'm not coming to you now because I'm a good man.
I'm coming because I'm an old man who has run out of reasons to keep quiet." He paused.
"I covered this up.
For years.
I told Ellen Marsh she was confused.
I let Harlan retire quietly.
I destroyed the primary records myself." His voice didn't waver but something behind his eyes did.
"I'm telling you this because you deserve to know it before you decide whether to trust anything else I say."
"I appreciate that," I said.
"Who else was involved?"
He reached into his jacket pocket and set a photograph on the table.
It was a staff photo.
Lakeview Fertility Associates, 2001.
Two rows of people in white coats, smiling at the camera.
He pointed to a figure in the back row.
A younger man, dark-haired, standing slightly apart from the others.
"Harlan Voss," he said.
Then he moved his finger to the front row.
A woman, mid-thirties, professional smile, a name badge I couldn't read from this angle.
I leaned forward.
I knew her face.
"That's Dr.
Patricia Hale," Finch said.
"She was the clinic's patient coordinator in 2001 and 2002.
She left Lakeview in 2004." He paused.
"She's been practicing at St.
Joseph's Hospital for the last nine years."
The room tilted slightly.
"She was in that room last night," I said.
"She wasn't introduced to me but she was there.
Standing near the door when the doctor was reading the lab report."
"Yes." Finch's voice was quiet.
"She would have been notified the moment the DNA match came through the system.
She's the one who called Michael."
"She called Michael."
"She's been monitoring the foster care application since it was submitted.
Yours and Michael's." He set his mug down.
"She knew who you were the moment your name went into the system.
She's been managing this — trying to manage it — for months."
I sat very still.
"Why would she help Michael hide this?
What does she get from it?"
Finch was quiet for a moment.
"In 2002, Patricia Hale was the one who selected the donor profiles.
She was the one who matched embryos to patients." He looked at me directly.
"The unauthorized transfer of your eggs wasn't only Harlan Voss's decision.
She approved the match.
She signed the secondary authorization.
Her signature is on the same document as his."
"So if this comes out—"
"She loses her license.
Possibly faces crjminal charges.
The statute of limitations on the civil side is complicated, but the medical board has no such limitations." He folded his hands on the table.
"She has spent twenty-two years making sure it never came out."
"And Michael?"
Finch hesitated.
"Michael didn't know about Patricia's involvement until four years ago, when I contacted him.
But once he knew — he chose not to tell you.
She made it easy for him to make that choice.
She framed it as protecting you.
Protecting the family." He paused.
"She's very good at framing things."
My coffee had gone cold.
I hadn't touched it.
"You said there were records.
In an offsite archive."
"Yes." He reached back into his jacket and placed a small envelope on the table.
"Copies.
I made them in 2006 before I retired.
I've kept them in a safe deposit box since then." He slid the envelope toward me.
"They include the original transfer authorization with both signatures.
Lab logs from the relevant dates.
And a patient intake form with your name, your address, and a notation that you were not to be contacted or informed."
I picked up the envelope.
"What do you want from this?" I asked him.
"You said you're not a good man.
So what do you want?"
He looked at me for a long moment.
"I want to stop carrying it," he said simply.
"That's all.
I'm sixty-eight years old and I want to put it down."
I looked at the envelope in my hands.
Then I looked at the photograph still on the table.
Patricia Hale's professional smile.
Harlan Voss standing slightly apart.
"I need a lawyer," I said.
"Yes," Finch said.
"You do."
I stood up, and as I reached for my bag, my phone rang.
It was one of my sons.
My eldest, Daniel.
"Mom." His voice was tight.
"Where are you?
Michael called me an hour ago.
He said there's some kind of situation at the hospital and that you're — he said you're not thinking clearly."
I closed my eyes for exactly one second.
"I'm thinking very clearly," I said.
"I'll explain everything tonight.
Don't call Michael back."
"Mom—"
"Daniel.
Trust me."
A pause.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay."
I hung up and looked at Finch.
"Is Dr.
Hale at the hospital today?"
He checked his phone.
"Her shift starts at nine."
I looked at my watch.
May you like
It was eight forty-one.
"Then I need to go," I said.
