Chapter 2 - The Wrong Color
For several seconds, nobody in the kitchen moved.
The metallic ticking from the pendant light became impossibly loud.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
Diane read the line again.
MATERNAL GENETIC CONSISTENCY: EXCLUDED.
Her fingers tightened around the paper.
“What does this mean?”
Lauren’s eyes filled again.
“It means the lab compared my DNA to fetal DNA from the prenatal blood draw. They said the fetus couldn’t be genetically mine.”
Diane looked at Mark.
“And his test says he isn’t the father.”
Mark leaned both hands against the counter.
“I got that result yesterday.”
“You got it yesterday and decided to change a cake?” Diane asked.
His jaw tightened.
“I decided not to tell sixty people that my wife might be carrying someone else’s child.”
Lauren flinched as though the sentence had struck her.
Diane saw it.
“So you thought she cheated?”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“You knew we used IVF,” Lauren said.
“I also knew you had a test you hid from me for three weeks.”
“I was trying to confirm it before I destroyed our life.”
Mark laughed once, but there was nothing amused in it.
“Good job.”
Diane stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Neither listened.
Lauren wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands.
“You want to know why I didn’t tell you? Because the day I got that report, Dr. Nolan called me before I even got home.”
Mark’s anger vanished.
“What?”
“He said the outside lab had made a technical error. He told me not to repeat the test because it could create legal confusion around the pregnancy.”
“Legal confusion?” Diane repeated.
Lauren nodded.
“He said those exact words.”
The baker, who had stayed near the door, spoke for the first time.
“That doesn’t sound like something a doctor says when a lab just makes a typo.”
Everyone turned toward her.
She looked suddenly embarrassed to be in the middle of a family implosion.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t my business.”
Diane pointed at her phone.
“You’re the one person in this room who kept evidence. Right now, it is your business. What’s your name?”
“Emily Park.”
“Emily, tell us exactly what happened this morning.”
Emily swallowed.
“Mark came in at seven forty-five. We don’t open until eight, but I was already in the kitchen. He knocked on the side door and said it was urgent.”
She looked at Mark.
“He was shaking.”
Mark looked away.
Emily continued.
“He said the clinic had sent the wrong sex result to the bakery. He showed me a fetal report with XX and the paternity test. He told me to replace the blue filling with pink.”
“Why show you the paternity test?” Lauren asked.
“I asked why the clinic result had changed. He said, ‘Because none of the paperwork makes sense anymore.’ Then he asked if anyone from Northbridge had contacted us about the order.”
Diane felt another cold wave roll through her.
“Had they?”
Emily nodded.
“A woman called last night.”
Mark stepped forward.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked after you started waving a DNA report at me.”
“What did she say?” Diane asked.
“She said the cake order had to stay blue no matter what the parents requested.”
Lauren’s face went blank.
“Who was she?”
“She said she was from patient coordination at Northbridge.”
Mark stared at Emily.
“Did she give a name?”
“Marissa.”
Lauren gripped the edge of the island.
“There is no Marissa in patient coordination.”
The sentence changed the room.
Diane could almost see everyone rearranging the facts in their heads.
A blue result tied to embryo 17-B.
A pink fetus.
Two tests excluding both parents.
A clinic calling a bakery to control a cake color.
This was no longer about a suspected affair.
This was about somebody trying very hard to preserve a specific story.
Mark took out his phone.
“I’m calling Nolan.”
Lauren grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he already knows what we know.”
“How?”
“Three weeks ago, after the maternal test, I called him. Yesterday you got the paternity result. Today the clinic calls a bakery to make sure the cake still says boy.”
Mark slowly lowered the phone.
Diane felt the ticking overhead again.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
“What exactly did Northbridge tell you about the embryo?” she asked.
Lauren pressed both hands against the lower curve of her stomach.
“They said embryo 17-B was ours. Created from my egg and Mark’s sperm. It tested chromosomally normal. Male. They transferred it in January.”
Mark’s voice became quiet.
“And every ultrasound after twelve weeks looked normal.”
“Did anyone tell you the sex?” Diane asked.
Lauren shook her head.
“We told them we didn’t want to know. We wanted the reveal.”
Diane looked at Emily.
“The sealed result that went to your bakery—who sent it?”
“Northbridge.”
“Not the obstetrician?”
“No. Lauren signed a release so the clinic would send the PGT sex result directly.”
Lauren’s eyes widened.
“That’s true. Because the embryo was already tested before transfer.”
Mark stared at her belly.
“Which means Northbridge never needed to know what the current fetus actually was.”
Diane understood before Lauren did.
“They sent the sex of the embryo they claimed they transferred.”
Emily’s hand rose to her mouth.
“But the fetus is a girl.”
Nobody spoke.
Outside, someone tried to restart the party music.
A cheerful song began, then abruptly cut off.
Lauren whispered, “What if they transferred the wrong embryo?”
Mark shook his head.
“That would explain the sex.”
“And the DNA.”
Diane looked between them.
“But not the phone call to the bakery.”
“No,” Mark said.
“That explains the cover-up.”
Lauren sank onto a stool.
Her breathing became shallow.
Diane moved beside her.
“We need a new test. Independent. Today.”
Mark nodded.
“I already arranged one.”
Lauren looked at him sharply.
“With who?”
“A private lab in Arlington. They can draw blood at home.”
“You arranged that before the party?”
“I arranged it after I saw zero percent.”
Diane studied his face.
There was still hurt there.
But beneath it was something else.
Fear.
The front doorbell rang.
Everyone froze.
Once.
Then again.
Emily looked toward the hallway.
“I didn’t invite anyone.”
“This is my house,” Diane said. “Neither did I.”
Mark walked toward the foyer.
Diane followed, but Lauren caught her sleeve.
“Mom.”
“What?”
“I got a text this morning from an unknown number.”
“What did it say?”
Lauren held up her phone.
The message contained only seven words.
DO NOT LET THEM DRAW YOUR BLOOD.
Before Diane could respond, Mark opened the front door.
A pregnant woman stood on the porch.
She looked close to Lauren’s age and almost as far along.
Her face was wet with tears.
In one hand she held a Northbridge folder.
In the other, a photograph of an ultrasound.
May you like
She looked past Mark and found Lauren in the kitchen.
Then she said, “I think you’re carrying my daughter.”
