“No,” he said. “No, that’s impossible.”
His mother, Elaine Henderson, placed a hand over her pearl necklace as if the strand itself might steady her. She had spent the last ten minutes telling the nurse how the Henderson men always had broad shoulders, strong chins, and a natural gift for leadership. Now she looked smaller beneath the soft clinic lights.
“There must be a mistake,” she said. “Those tests get mixed up all the time.”
Dr. Vance shook his head. “The sample was processed twice because of the discrepancy between the expected results and the submitted information. There was no error.”
Marcus’s head turned slowly toward Penelope.
She would not look at him.
Her eyes remained fixed on the monitor, where the soft gray shape of her unborn child still flickered against the black screen. A child who had been celebrated before anyone knew the truth. A child who had already been given a name, a future, a role in a family story that now seemed to be collapsing around him.
Or perhaps around her.
Because in the silence that followed, Dr. Vance added one more detail, almost gently.
“And I should also clarify—the baby is a girl.”
Elaine lowered herself into the nearest chair.
Roxanne whispered, “A girl?”
Marcus stared at Penelope as though she had become a stranger between one breath and the next.
“You told me it was a boy,” he said.
Penelope swallowed, but her voice did not come.
“You told all of us,” Elaine said, her words trembling with something between grief and humiliation. “You said the test was done. You said there was no doubt.”
Penelope finally turned her face away from the monitor.
“I thought…” she began.
Marcus took a step back. “You thought?”
His voice had lost its arrogance. It was thinner now, stripped down to panic.
