Chapter 4 - WHAT MY MOTHER WAS AFRAID OFMy mother refused to answer until my father threatened to leave the house.
Not figuratively.
He walked upstairs, brought down a suitcase, and began filling it with shirts in front of her.
That finally broke something.
“Fine!” Mom shouted.
Dad stopped.
She looked at me.
“You want the truth? You’re going to hate me regardless, so fine.”
I sat beside Michael on the living-room sofa.
“Try me.”
Mom remained standing.
She had always been beautiful in a polished, controlled way. Perfect hair. Perfect clothes. Perfect Christmas cards.
That afternoon she looked small.
“Beverly came to me last spring because she was worried about you.”
I laughed.
It came out harsher than I intended.
“Beverly has never worried about me a day in her life.”
“She said you were obsessed with having children.”
“I had gone to one fertility consultation.”
“You had been talking about it for months.”
“To my fiancé.”
Mom flinched.
I stared at her.
“How did she know what I was saying to Michael?”
No answer.
Michael’s face tightened.
“Margaret?”
Mom sat in the armchair.
“Beverly had access to Elaine’s old cloud account.”
I felt the room tilt.
“What?”
“You shared an Apple account years ago.”
“When we were teenagers.”
“She said some old messages were still syncing.”
I looked at Michael.
For several months before my fertility appointment, I had used an old iPad for recipes and streaming.
Could some messages have synced there?
Maybe.
But the realization that Beverly might have been reading private conversations between Michael and me made my skin crawl.
“She read my messages?”
“Not intentionally at first.”
Michael muttered, “That always ends well.”
Mom ignored him.
“She saw how frightened you were about fertility. She thought you were putting pressure on yourself.”
“So naturally you hacked my medical portal.”
“We did not hack anything.”
“What word would you prefer?”
Mom pressed her lips together.
“Beverly guessed your password.”
Dad sat down heavily.
“My God, Margaret.”
“She only wanted to see whether you were telling us the whole truth.”
“I wasn’t telling you anything!”
“That was the problem.”
I stared at her.
“You believe my private medical information belongs to you because you gave birth to me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s exactly what you’re saying.”
Michael leaned forward.
“And why cancel the follow-up?”
Mom’s expression shifted.
There it was.
The thing she was most afraid of telling us.
“Because Beverly was concerned about Dr. Patel.”
“Why?”
“She thought the clinic was pushing expensive procedures.”
I shook my head.
“Beverly sells real estate. Since when does she evaluate reproductive endocrinologists?”
Mom looked down.
“She had spoken to another doctor.”
“What doctor?”
Silence.
My father’s voice was exhausted.
“Margaret.”
She whispered, “Dr. Fairchild.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Michael.
He pulled out his phone and searched.
His eyebrows rose.
“Robert Fairchild?”
Mom nodded.
“Who is he?” I asked.
Michael turned the screen.
“Private fertility consultant. New York.”
“Why would Beverly consult a doctor about me?”
Mom looked toward the window.
I knew immediately.
“Oh my God.”
She said nothing.
“Beverly was trying to get pregnant.”
Mom began crying.
Dad stared at her.
“What?”
“She and Ryan had been having problems.”
Beverly had been married to Ryan Cole for five years.
From the outside, they had the kind of marriage people envied online: ski trips, matching workout photos, expensive dinners, a renovated farmhouse outside Providence.
They had never mentioned children.
At least not to me.
“Beverly had been trying for almost three years,” Mom said.
I felt anger and sympathy collide.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She didn’t want anyone to know.”
The irony was almost unbearable.
The sister who valued her own reproductive privacy had announced mine into a microphone.
Mom wiped her face.
“Her testing wasn’t encouraging.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Dr. Fairchild mentioned donor eggs.”
For several seconds, I didn’t understand.
Then I did.
And suddenly I wished I hadn’t.
“No.”
Michael straightened.
Dad whispered, “Margaret…”
Mom rushed forward.
“Nothing happened.”
I stood.
“Did Beverly want my eggs?”
“She asked whether you might consider helping her.”
“And instead of asking me, you stole my records?”
“We needed to know whether you would even be a candidate.”
The words hit harder than Beverly’s wedding announcement.
“You accessed my medical records to see if my eggs were useful to her?”
“When you say it like that—”
“How else should I say it?”
Mom started crying harder.
“Beverly was devastated.”
“So you sacrificed my privacy to protect hers?”
“I was trying to help both my daughters.”
“No. You were helping your favorite daughter.”
Dad closed his eyes.
Mom went still.
We had never said it aloud before.
Everyone knew it.
But families can build entire histories around the things nobody says.
Beverly had always been easier for Mom.
Beautiful, outgoing, popular.
I was quieter.
Bookish.
The daughter who moved away.
The one who questioned things.
When Beverly wanted dance lessons, she got them.
When Beverly wrecked Dad’s car at seventeen, Mom convinced him not to punish her because senior year was stressful.
When I got accepted to Northwestern, Mom asked why I wanted to go so far away.
“You always make everything a competition,” Mom whispered.
I stared at her.
“No. I spent thirty-one years pretending it wasn’t one.”
Dad’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
“Beverly.”
Mom stood quickly.
“Don’t answer.”
Dad answered.
“Come over.”
I could hear Beverly’s voice.
“Why?”
“Because your sister is here.”
A pause.
Then, “Absolutely not.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“Beverly, if you don’t come here, I’m coming to your house.”
She arrived twenty-eight minutes later.
Ryan came with her.
He looked confused.
That surprised me.
Beverly entered without knocking.
“What did you tell them?”
Mom stood.
“Enough.”
“Enough?”
Ryan frowned.
“Can someone tell me what’s happening?”
Beverly froze.
Mom stared at her.
“You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Ryan asked.
Beverly dropped her purse.
“Not now.”
Ryan’s voice changed.
“Beverly.”
I realized something extraordinary.
Her own husband didn’t know.
Not about the stolen medical records.
Maybe not even about Dr. Fairchild.
Michael stood.
“I think we should let them handle this privately.”
I agreed.
Not because Beverly deserved privacy.
Because Ryan did.
Beverly watched us move toward the door.
Then she said the sentence that stopped me.
“You think you’re so much better than me.”
I turned.
Her eyes were red.
“You always have.”
“No.”
“Yes. Elaine the responsible one. Elaine the successful one. Elaine who never needs anybody.”
I almost laughed.
“This started because you read my private messages.”
“You had everything!”
Ryan stared at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“You had Michael. You had your career. You had the perfect apartment. Then you started talking about babies like that was just going to happen too.”
I looked at her in disbelief.
“So you wanted me to be infertile?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You announced it at my wedding.”
“You got to walk into that ballroom and have four hundred people worship you while I stood there knowing I might never—”
She stopped.
Ryan looked devastated.
“Might never what?”
Her face collapsed.
He already knew.
“Beverly,” he whispered. “Are you saying we can’t have children?”
“We can.”
“But you’ve seen a doctor?”
She began crying.
Ryan looked around at all of us.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
His face drained.
“You’ve been getting fertility treatment for three years without telling me?”
“It was my body.”
“It was our marriage.”
“No, Ryan. It was me failing at the one thing everyone expects women to do.”
Something inside my anger softened.
Only a fraction.
Enough to understand her pain.
Not enough to excuse what she had done.
“You weren’t failing,” I said.
She looked at me.
“And neither was I.”
Beverly’s expression broke.
For a second, she seemed almost ready to apologize.
Then she wiped her face and became hard again.
“This family will always choose you now.”
I stared at her.
“Beverly, this family spent thirty years choosing you.”
I opened the door.
Before leaving, Michael turned toward my mother.
“We’re filing a report with the clinic.”
Mom stiffened.
“What kind of report?”
“A formal investigation into unauthorized access.”
Fear flashed across her face.
Then Beverly said quietly, “That won’t be the worst thing they find.”
Everyone stopped.
My mother spun toward her.
“Beverly.”
“What?” I asked.
Beverly looked directly at Mom.
“You wanted honesty.”
May you like
Then she looked at me.
“The portal wasn’t the only thing she accessed.”
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