Chapter 6: What Penelope Planned
"Marcus," I said.
"What didn't you tell her?"
Joel was watching me.
I put the call on speaker and held the phone between us.
"The paperwork," Marcus said.
His voice was low and fast, like someone talking through a nearly closed door.
"The version Penelope filed — I didn't know she'd done it until two weeks ago.
She told me it was just a cleaner copy.
An administrative update.
I signed it without reading it carefully enough."
"You signed the altered version?" Joel said.
A pause.
"Yes.
I didn't know what I was signing.
I trusted her." Another pause, longer.
"I know how that sounds."
"Marcus," I said.
"What is it you didn't tell Diane?"
He was quiet for a moment.
Then: "There's a second document.
Penelope had a private agreement drawn up.
Not through a proper legal channel — through someone she found online, some kind of document service.
It's not a real legal instrument but she thinks it is.
Or she thinks it's enough."
"What does it say?"
"It says that in the event the surrogacy agreement is challenged or voided, you agree in advance to surrender the child voluntarily.
No court involvement.
No dispute." His voice dropped further.
"She was going to ask you to sign it today.
At lunch."
I looked at Joel.
His face had gone very still.
"She was going to present it as a formality," Marcus continued.
"She has a whole explanation prepared.
She was going to tell you it was something the clinic required.
That it was standard."
"It's not standard," I said.
"No.
It's not."
"Why are you telling me this?"
The line was quiet for a moment.
When Marcus spoke again, something in his voice had changed.
The tightness was still there, but underneath it was something that sounded like exhaustion.
"Because I have a daughter," he said.
"From my first marriage.
She's nineteen.
And when I read what Penelope had written into that document — the part about voluntary surrender, no dispute — I thought about someone doing that to my daughter.
Asking her to sign away something she didn't fully understand." He stopped.
"I couldn't let it happen."
I didn't say anything.
"I'm not a good person in this story," Marcus said.
"I signed documents I shouldn't have.
I let things go on too long because I wanted Penelope to be happy and I didn't ask enough questions.
I know that." A breath.
"But this part I can stop.
So I'm stopping it."
"Does she know you're calling me?" Joel asked.
"No.
She's upstairs.
I told her I was going to the pharmacy." A pause.
"She's going to know eventually.
When you don't sign today, she'll figure it out."
"What will she do?" I asked.
"I don't know," he said.
"I've been married to her for eleven years and I'm not sure I know her as well as I thought I did." The words came out flat.
Not cruel.
Just honest in a way that sounded like it cost him something.
"But I know she loves that baby.
Whatever else she's done, that part is real."
"So do I," I said.
He didn't answer that.
"Marcus," I said.
"The donor.
Did you know?"
A long silence.
"I suspected," he said finally.
"About two months ago.
I found a receipt from the clinic.
A second visit, dated after we'd already made our selection together.
I asked Penelope about it and she said it was a billing correction." He stopped.
"I didn't push.
I should have pushed."
"The donor was my brother," I said.
The silence on his end was different this time.
Complete.
"I didn't know that," he said quietly.
"I swear to you, I did not know that."
I believed him.
I didn't know why, but I did.
"Don't go to the pharmacy," Joel said.
"Go back inside.
Act normal.
Let her think today is still going to go the way she planned."
"Why?"
"Because we need her to show us that document herself," Joel said.
"We need her to hand it to my wife and ask her to sign it.
In front of witnesses."
Another silence.
Then Marcus said: "My sister-in-law is coming for lunch.
Penelope invited her yesterday."
"Good," Joel said.
"That's a witness."
"Okay," Marcus said.
He sounded like a man who had made a decision and was already feeling the weight of what came after it.
"Okay."
He hung up.
Joel and I looked at each other across Diane's office.
"She's going to hand you a document and ask you to sign away your rights to your own niece or nephew," he said.
"A child who is also your brother's child.
At a lunch table."
"Yes," I said.
"And you're going to go."
"Yes."
He took my hand.
Held it.
"I'll be in the car," he said.
"The whole time.
You call me the second you need me."
I nodded.
Then I picked up my phone and called Daniel.
May you like
He answered on the second ring, cheerful, asking if everything was okay with the pregnancy.
I said I needed to tell him something, and that he needed to sit down first.
