Claire stared at her. “So Emma could have been tested somewhere else.”
“Yes.”
“She was three. I would remember someone taking her blood.”
Dr. Shah’s expression became careful. “There should be a consent form in the archived packet.”
“Should be?”
“The paper records were scanned during a merger. Some indexing is incomplete.”
Claire laughed once, sharply. “Of course it is.”
Daniel did not tell her to calm down.
Dr. Shah clicked through another screen. “The specimen identifier matches the old tube label. It has been in storage continuously. There’s no sign the sample was swapped or relabeled after accession.”
“That still doesn’t prove it’s Emma’s.”
“No. The confirmation panel in the morning can compare stable genetic markers from the archived sample with her current specimen. That will tell us whether both samples came from the same person.”
Claire folded her arms so tightly her fingers hurt.
“And the physician name?”
“Administrative attribution. Not proof Dr. Rowe ever met Emma.”
For the first time in twenty minutes, the impossible thing became merely unexplained.
Claire did not feel better.
She returned to Emma’s room and sat beside the bed until dawn.
At 5:12, Emma opened one eye.
“Are you mad?”
Claire looked down. “Why would I be mad at you?”
“You have your mad shoulders.”
Claire almost smiled. “I’m mad at paperwork.”
“That sounds boring.”
“It is extremely boring.”
Emma studied her. “Is the weird test still good news?”
“I hope so.”
“You said hope before.”
“I know.”
Emma reached for Arthur and tucked him beneath her chin. “You can say you don’t know.”
The words landed with embarrassing force.
