Chapter 3 - The False Foundation
The fourth floor was a different world. The oncology wing didn’t have the bright, primary-colored walls of the pediatric ward. Here, the lighting was softer, the hum of the HVAC system was quieter, and the air held the sterile, metallic scent of concentrated effort. I walked down the hall with my stethoscope around my neck, my white coat acting as a suit of armor.
I didn't head to the nursing station. Instead, I ducked into the Records Archive, a small, windowless office where the older files were kept in digitized rows. I knew the administrator, Mrs. Gable, a woman who had worked here since before I graduated med school.
"Kirsten! You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, not looking up from her screen.
"Just a long shift, Mrs. Gable. I was reviewing some data for a colleague—a private pediatric case—and I think there might be a clerical error. Do you have a moment to check a patient ID for me?"
I recited the number from the wristband I’d found. Mrs. Gable sighed, adjusted her glasses, and tapped the keys. The screen flickered.
"That's strange," she muttered. "This ID isn't registered in the general system. It's marked as 'Restricted Access—External Proxy.'"
"Proxy?" My heart skipped a beat. "What does that mean?"
"It means the billing and record management are handled by a private firm, not the hospital’s internal ledger. Whoever set this up paid a premium to keep the medical history off our main server. It’s usually for celebrities or high-net-worth individuals who want privacy."
Connor. Of course. He was obsessed with appearances, with projecting an image of untouchable success.
"Can you pull the proxy location?"
She hesitated. "I really shouldn't, honey."
"Mrs. Gable, the child is exhibiting symptoms of systemic distress that don't match his age. If he’s on an experimental protocol, the attending physicians need to know. It’s a matter of patient safety."
The lie came easily. I was a doctor; I knew how to use the weight of my position. She frowned, worried, and clicked a few more times. A destination appeared: Genesis Fertility & Genetic Institute.
I stared at the name. It wasn’t a hospital. It was a high-end, shadowy clinic known for designer genetics and off-the-books procedures. My hands were steady, but my skin felt cold.
As I left the office, I pulled my phone out. I had a contact, Marcus, a brilliant medical researcher who thrived on unraveling the industry’s dirtiest secrets. I sent him the ID number and the name of the clinic. 'Can you cross-reference this child's genetic marker with the clinic's public donor database?'
While I waited, I remembered the seven years of hell Connor had put me through. He had spent thousands on specialists, looking for "problems" with my health. He had convinced me I was broken. But if he had been visiting Genesis Fertility years ago, he hadn’t been looking for a cure for me. He had been looking for a way to curate his own legacy, potentially hiding his own genetic flaws—flaws he had likely blamed on me.
That night, I didn't go home. I sat in my car in the hospital parking lot, the rain streaking the windows. My phone pinged. A document arrived from Marcus.
I opened it, and the screen illuminated my face in the dark. The document wasn’t a medical chart; it was a paternity match report. The donor for the child was listed as 'Anonymous.' But the genetic profile was a 99.9% match to a specific donor ID.
I scrolled down to the footnotes. The donor was listed as a 'Carrier of Recessive X-linked Disorder.'
Connor wasn't just hiding a sick child. He was hiding the fact that he was the carrier of a disease he had told me I was responsible for. He had spent years watching me weep over negative pregnancy tests, knowing the whole time that he was the one passing down a ticking time bomb.
He hadn't left me because I couldn't have children. He had left me because I had started asking too many questions, and he needed a fresh start—a new partner he could gaslight into believing that they were the ones who were imperfect.
I leaned back, my vision blurring. He hadn't just destroyed our marriage; he had built a life on a foundation of lies, using a child as his ultimate accessory.
May you like
I started the car. I knew exactly where Melinda lived. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't going to play the role of the humiliated ex-wife. I was going to be the doctor who delivered the truth.
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