Chapter 3 - The Consent I Never Gave
I drove straight to my attorney’s office.
Rachel Kim had handled my mother’s estate and knew every member of my family.
She read the clinic papers twice.
“This is not merely adultery,” she said. “This may be medical fraud, identity theft, and unlawful use of marital genetic material.”
I stared at her.
“Genetic material?”
Rachel pointed to a paragraph near the bottom.
The embryos had been created from Julian’s sperm and donor eggs.
Chloe was listed as the gestational carrier.
“She isn’t the biological mother,” Rachel said.
My stomach tightened.
“Then whose eggs were used?”
The donor identification field had been blacked out.
I remembered our fertility clinic storing seven of my eggs after an unsuccessful cycle.
Julian had told me the clinic destroyed them because they were not viable.
I had cried for days.
Rachel called the clinic’s legal department.
At first, they refused to discuss anything.
Then I emailed the forged document.
Their tone changed immediately.
A compliance officer asked me to come in the next morning.
That night, Julian sent thirty-seven messages.
He said he loved me.
He said Evelyn pressured him.
He said Chloe had always wanted a child.
He said the clinic made a mistake.
Every explanation blamed someone else.
Chloe sent one message.
I never meant for you to find out like this.
I replied:
How did you expect me to find out?
She did not answer.
At midnight, Evelyn called.
“You should think carefully before destroying this family.”
“You already did.”
“The baby is innocent.”
“Yes. Which is why I need to know whose baby it really is.”
Silence.
Then Evelyn said, “Some truths cannot be taken back.”
I looked at my mother’s photograph on the dresser.
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For the first time, I wondered whether my sister’s pregnancy involved something stolen from me long before I reached that front door.
👉 The next morning, the clinic director opened a sealed file and told Clara that her supposedly destroyed eggs had never been destroyed at all.
