Chapter 3 - MONDAY MORNINGWe canceled Hawaii before sunrise.
Under ordinary circumstances, canceling a honeymoon less than twelve hours after our wedding would have devastated me.
Instead, when the reservation agent asked whether we wanted airline credit, all I could think about was an envelope that might never have existed.
Michael and I spent Sunday in our apartment eating leftover wedding cake that Emily delivered in a cardboard box.
Our phones rang constantly.
I ignored almost everyone.
Beverly sent one message.
You embarrassed me in front of everyone.
I stared at it for ten seconds before handing my phone to Michael.
He read it.
“Impressive.”
“What?”
“The complete absence of self-awareness.”
I almost laughed.
Then another message arrived.
From Mom.
Please call me when you’re ready to act like adults.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
“I assume we’re not ready.”
“Not even close.”
At eight Monday morning, I called Boston Center for Reproductive Medicine.
The receptionist transferred me twice before I reached someone in medical records.
I explained there might have been an unauthorized disclosure involving my account.
Her tone changed immediately.
“Mrs. Grant, I’m going to transfer you to our privacy officer.”
Hearing my new last name under those circumstances felt surreal.
The privacy officer was a woman named Denise.
She verified my identity.
Then she asked a question that made me sit straighter.
“Have you ever authorized Margaret Hale to access your records?”
“No.”
“Beverly Hale?”
“No.”
“Have you shared your patient portal credentials with either person?”
“Never.”
There was typing.
A lot of it.
Then silence.
“Mrs. Grant, I’m seeing activity that concerns me.”
Michael, sitting across the kitchen table, watched my face.
“What kind of activity?”
“Your account was accessed multiple times from an unfamiliar device.”
My skin went cold.
“When?”
She listed dates.
The first was two days after my original consultation.
The second was a week later.
Then four more times over the next month.
“That wasn’t me.”
“I understand.”
“Can you tell where the access came from?”
“Not immediately. Our information-security department can investigate.”
“Was anything downloaded?”
More typing.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“A consultation summary. Laboratory results. Imaging notes.”
My throat tightened.
“Anything else?”
A pause.
“There was also a secure message sent from your account.”
I looked at Michael.
“To whom?”
“Your physician.”
“What did it say?”
“I can read your own message back to you.”
“Please.”
Denise began.
“After discussing this with my fiancé, I’ve decided not to pursue additional fertility treatment at this time. Please cancel my scheduled follow-up and do not contact me by telephone.”
I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.
“I never sent that.”
Michael was on his feet immediately.
“What happened?”
I put the phone on speaker.
Denise repeated it.
Michael stared at me.
I could barely speak.
“I had a follow-up?”
“Yes,” Denise said. “According to the notes, Dr. Patel wanted additional imaging because your initial results were inconclusive.”
“Inconclusive?”
“Yes.”
Beverly’s words echoed in my head.
Elaine can’t have children.
“How inconclusive?”
“I’m not qualified to interpret the medical findings, but I can schedule you with Dr. Patel to discuss them.”
“Today.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Twenty minutes later, Denise called back.
Dr. Patel would see us at one.
We arrived forty minutes early.
I had been to that clinic twice before.
The waiting room had pale blue walls, soft chairs, and framed photographs of babies sent by former patients.
The first time I visited, those pictures made me hopeful.
Now they made me angry.
Dr. Anika Patel entered the consultation room carrying a tablet.
She was in her late forties, with calm eyes and a direct way of speaking that I remembered immediately.
She sat across from us.
“Elaine, first, I’m very sorry. Our privacy team is investigating how your portal was accessed.”
“Can you tell me what my report actually said?”
“Yes.”
She opened the file.
“Your initial bloodwork indicated diminished ovarian reserve. Your ultrasound also showed something I suspected might be a uterine septum.”
I blinked.
“Which means?”
“A congenital difference in the shape of the uterus. Depending on severity, it can increase miscarriage risk and sometimes affect fertility. But your ultrasound wasn’t definitive. That’s why I ordered a specialized scan.”
“The appointment that someone canceled.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever tell me I could never have children?”
“No.”
The word came so quickly that I almost cried.
“No?”
“Absolutely not.”
Michael exhaled beside me.
Dr. Patel continued carefully.
“I told you conception might be more challenging and that I wanted more information before making recommendations.”
“Could I still become pregnant naturally?”
“It’s possible.”
“What about with treatment?”
“Potentially. We need updated testing.”
I pressed my hands together.
For months, I had lived with a sentence my doctor had never said.
Not because Beverly announced it at my wedding.
Because sometime after that first appointment, my mother had called me and gently told me to stop obsessing about becoming a parent.
Maybe this was life telling you something, she’d said.
I had thought she was giving advice.
Now I wondered whether she believed she knew my prognosis.
“Can you show me what was downloaded?” Michael asked.
Dr. Patel turned the tablet.
The document contained medical language I barely understood.
But I immediately saw something important.
At the bottom, under Assessment:
Further evaluation recommended before definitive prognosis.
Michael pointed.
“That sounds extremely different from ‘can never have children.’”
Dr. Patel nodded.
“It is.”
“So someone either misunderstood this badly,” I said, “or they changed the story.”
“That part I can’t answer.”
The privacy officer joined us fifteen minutes later.
She explained their IT team had identified the device type used to enter my portal.
An iPad.
I owned an iPhone and a Windows laptop.
My mother owned an iPad.
So did millions of other people.
It wasn’t proof.
Then Denise said, “The account was accessed through correct credentials.”
I frowned.
“How would anyone have my password?”
“Was it a password you used elsewhere?”
I hesitated.
Michael answered before I did.
“She used to use the same password for everything.”
“Michael.”
“You did.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Before marrying a cybersecurity consultant would eventually shame me into better habits, I had used a variation of the same password for years.
My childhood dog’s name and my birth year.
Beverly knew both.
Mom knew both.
Half my family knew both.
I felt sick.
Denise recommended filing a formal privacy incident report and changing every password.
I did both.
Then she added one more thing.
“The secure message that canceled your follow-up included a sentence that may help identify who wrote it.”
“What sentence?”
She enlarged it.
I read:
My family has accepted that motherhood probably isn’t part of God’s plan for me.
I stared at those words.
Michael looked confused.
“What?”
I knew exactly why they mattered.
Because I would never have written them.
I wasn’t religious.
But my mother was.
And “God’s plan” was one of her favorite expressions.
At Christmas.
During breakups.
At funerals.
When I lost a promotion.
Whenever something painful happened that she wanted me to stop discussing.
Michael took my hand.
“Elaine?”
“I know who talks like that.”
By four that afternoon, we were sitting in my parents’ living room.
Dad had asked Mom to come home from work.
She entered through the kitchen wearing a navy coat and looked annoyed when she saw us.
“I thought we were giving this a few days.”
“No,” I said.
I placed a printed copy of the portal message on the coffee table.
Her eyes dropped to it.
Everything in her face changed.
Dad noticed.
“What is that?”
Mom didn’t answer.
I did.
“Someone logged into my medical account, downloaded my records, and canceled a follow-up appointment while pretending to be me.”
Dad turned slowly toward his wife.
“Margaret?”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
I pushed the page toward her.
“Read the last sentence.”
She didn’t.
“You use that phrase all the time.”
“So do millions of people.”
“Did you log into my portal?”
“No.”
“Did Beverly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did the report come from?”
“I told you.”
“The mail?”
“Yes.”
“Dad never saw it.”
She looked at him.
“Thomas doesn’t remember every envelope.”
“I remember important mail.”
Mom’s jaw tightened.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a ringtone came from the kitchen counter.
Mom’s iPad lit up.
A message preview appeared.
From Beverly.
Mom lunged for it.
Dad reached the tablet first.
“Thomas, give me that.”
He stared at the screen.
Then at her.
“What does she mean by delete the screenshots?”
The room became completely silent.
Mom stopped moving.
My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
Dad unlocked the tablet.
Mom tried to take it.
He stepped back.
Another message arrived.
Beverly again.
I told you this would happen if she found out about the appointment.
Michael whispered, “Wow.”
Mom’s face had gone gray.
I stared at her.
“What appointment?”
May you like
She closed her eyes.
And that was when I realized the canceled fertility scan was only one piece of whatever she and Beverly had done.
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