I Will Find You(79)

“It’s not a coincidence, Rachel.”

“You keep saying that.” Her grip on the wheel tightens. “I need to clear the air about something.”

“About what?”

“It’s old news. It shouldn’t matter anymore.”

But her tone says that it matters a lot. I turn to her. Her eyes are too focused on the road in front of her.

“Go on,” I say.

“I helped Cheryl make the appointment at that fertility clinic.”

I am not sure I understand what she means. “When you say ‘helped’—”

“I met the manager of Berg Reproductive through Hayden Payne,” she said. “So I called her and made the appointment.”

“Instead of Cheryl?”

“Yes.”

“That hardly seems like a big deal,” I say. “I mean, I wish you’d told me about it—”

“I said the appointment was for me.” Rachel swallows, her eyes still on the road. “When Cheryl went, she used my ID instead of her own.”

I take in her profile. My voice is oddly calm. “Why would you do that?”

“Why do you think, David?”

But the answer is obvious. “To hide it from me.”

“Yes.”

I feel tears push their way into my eyes, but I don’t even know why. “I don’t really give a shit anymore, Rachel.”

“It isn’t what you think.”

“I think Cheryl wanted to explore getting donor sperm and for me to never know about it. I think you conspired to help her. Am I wrong?”

Rachel kept both hands on the wheel.

“You learn in prison,” I said. “Nobody’s on nobody’s side.”

“I’m on your side.”

I say nothing.

“She’s my sister. You get that, right?”

“So you went along with it?”

“I told her it was a bad idea.”

“But you still went along with it.”

Rachel carefully hits the turn signal, checks her rearview mirrors, changes lanes. Even after not seeing her for five years, I still know her so well.

“Rachel?”

She doesn’t reply.

“What are you leaving out?” I ask.

“I didn’t agree with what she was doing. I thought she should tell you.”

I wait for the proverbial shoe to drop.

“And once Cheryl didn’t go through with it, I thought…”

“Thought what?”

Rachel shook away my question. “How did you find out Cheryl went to Berg?”

“Someone at the clinic left a message on the home answering machine.”

“Think about it,” Rachel said. “Why would they do that if her patient records were all in my name?”

I stop. It takes me more time than it should. “You?”

She keeps her eyes on the road.

“You left that message?”

“It was over. She didn’t go through with it. I hadn’t liked being dragged into it, and no matter how I try to justify it, I betrayed you. That didn’t sit right with me. So one night, I had too much to drink, and I thought shit, Cheryl should tell him. For her sake. For his sake. Hell, for my sake. So we wouldn’t all be living with this awful lie hanging over our heads for the rest of our lives. You two were starting a family of your own.”

I sit there. Just when I think nothing can stun me again, there it is.

“I’ve learned the hard way,” Rachel said. “Lies like that, they stay in the room. They never leave. They rot you slowly from the inside. You and Cheryl couldn’t build a family on a secret like that. And yeah, okay, it wasn’t my secret to tell. But Cheryl made me part of the deception. That secret was poisoning our relationship now too. Yours and mine.”

“So you decided to end the secret,” I say.

Rachel nods. I turn away.

“David?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Like you said, it was a long time ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Something else in me breaks; I need to get off this subject. “Does Cheryl know I’m coming?”

Rachel shakes her head. “You told me not to tell her.”

“So she thinks—”

“She thinks it’s only going to be me. We’re supposed to meet in her office.”

“How much longer?”

“Half an hour,” Rachel says, and we fall into silence.





Chapter

32



Rachel parks in the visitor lot at St. Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston, New Jersey. We both don surgical masks. Since Covid, no one thinks twice about seeing someone with a mask, especially near a hospital. Again, it’s a pretty effective disguise.

We start toward the front entrance.

“How long has Cheryl been working here?” I ask.

“Three years. They have a good kidney transplant program.”

“But Cheryl loved working at Boston General.”

“She did,” Rachel agrees. “But staying became untenable after your conviction. The hospital called her a”—Rachel made quote marks with her fingers—“distraction.”