Suddenly there was a loud rap at the metal door on the other side of the Plexiglas, and the corrections officer reappeared, taking stainless-steel handcuffs from his thick utility belt. “Jeffcoat, your time’s up.”

“Coming.” Zachary rose reluctantly, anguished. “Please, Christine, get me out of here. I’ll give you the exclusive. Find me a lawyer, please.”

“I understand,” Christine said, off-balance. She had run out of time to ask him, and she couldn’t go home without finding out. “Maybe we could talk again tomorrow? Would that be possible?”

Lauren looked over but said nothing.

“Yes, yes, anytime.” Zachary offered his wrists to the corrections officer behind his back. “We can talk every day if you want. Just help me, please. I’m begging you.”

Chapter Nineteen

Christine headed to the exit doors of the prison with Lauren, shaken to her very foundation as they followed the others out. She wiped sweat from her brow, and her mouth had gone dry. Her mind reeled, her emotions churned. They went through the doors, and Christine felt hit by a wall of humidity, with the sun high in the sky and no trees to shade the prison entrance. They went down the steps and passed the Department of Corrections buses, which were still idling, their engines throwing off heat, making wiggly waves in the sweltering air.

Christine tried to recover as they walked through the official parking lot, neither woman speaking because they weren’t alone. A man and a woman whom she had seen in the visiting room walked in front of them, tugging a toddler along, who had her little arm curved over a plush pink rabbit like a piece of macaroni. Christine noticed the woman walking too fast for the child, who had to scurry on the tiptoes of her sandals to keep up, and she would never understand the casual cruelty of some mothers, who had no idea how precious a gift they’d been given, in a child.

“Are you okay?” Lauren fell into step beside her after the women and the child went to the left toward a battered minivan. They headed out of the official lot, walking downhill along the road.

“I don’t know, I think so. It was so strange.”

“Why didn’t you ask him? Did you chicken out?” Lauren looked over at her, her brown eyes bewildered. Her long, dark hair stuck to the nape of her neck, curling in damp tendrils.

“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t chicken out, I even had a plan of how to bring it up.” Christine wiped her forehead with her hand, trying to process what had just happened. “I was warming up, finding out the background information, trying to see if it matched the online profile, but then, when he told that story about his sister dying, it threw me off track.”

“I knew it. I could see, I knew something was happening. All of a sudden you went quiet.”

“I felt terrible for him. For his sister, for his mom. Poor child, poor woman.”

“Well? Do you think it’s him?”

Christine couldn’t answer, her emotions catching up with her all at once. Tears sprang to her eyes. She stopped in her tracks, stricken. She wanted to scream. It was too much. It couldn’t be. She covered her face with her hands, even holding the car keys.

“Oh honey.” Lauren hugged her gently.

“I think it’s him,” Christine heard herself saying, her heart speaking even as it was breaking. “I think he’s our donor. I think he’s my baby’s father.”

“You don’t know that for sure.” Lauren soothed her, then let her go. “You don’t.”

“Oh my God.” Christine was trying not to cry. She had to keep it together. She lowered her hand with the car keys. “How did this happen? This can’t be happening.”

“It might not be. We don’t know for sure until you ask him.” Lauren held Christine by the shoulders, bracing her and looking directly into her eyes. “Remember that. We don’t know for sure.”

“Right. We don’t know for sure.” Christine repeated the words, almost involuntarily, trying to convince herself. Maybe if they could say it enough, over and over, they could make it true.

“Lots of people look like other people. Just last week, I got an email from Britney Keen, you know her, and she thought she saw me in the movies, and I wasn’t at the movies.”

“Right, people look alike sometimes.” Christine sighed heavily, and Lauren let her shoulders go.

“Let’s get out of here.”

“Okay, yes, right.” Christine wiped her face and started walking, with Lauren falling into step beside her.

“Why do you think he’s your donor? Because he was accepted into med school?”

“Yes, and that he’s a chem major, he’s logical, he looks like him, he has religious parents…” Christine let her list trail off, trying to collect her thoughts.

“Don’t get carried away, though. None of that is definitive.”

“I know, but there’s more. He said that he did a lot of things to earn money during med school, and in the profile it said he donated it for the money, so he could pay for med school.”

“Most students need money during school.”

“I know, but it’s the sense I had, being in the same room with him—”

“You weren’t in the same room with him.” Lauren’s eyes looked worried, as they walked along.

“I kind of was, I mean, we were. Anyway he felt like the father.”

“Oh boy. Now you’re talking crazy.” Lauren snorted, walking beside her, as they traveled downhill.

“I know. It’s just a sense. I can’t deny it. It’s a hunch. A sensation, intuition.” Christine knew it was crazy, but she felt it inside. She hadn’t realized it until this very moment, but she had to admit it to herself. They were almost at the visitors’ lot, and she spotted her car, baking in the sun.

“It was voodoo? Pregnancy voodoo?”

“Whatever, I felt connected to him. I felt like he was the father.” Christine aimed the key fob at her car, miserably.

“Biological father.”

“Right.” Christine meant biological, it was a shorthand. “What do you think? Do you think he’s Donor 3319?”

“Honestly?” Lauren sighed, her heavy chest rising and falling slowly. “I hate to add fuel to the fire, but I thought he might be. The facts fit the online profile.”