Gemini (36 page)

“Those mail-order paternity tests can be wrong. Maybe you should do a blood test,” Pamela said.

Charlotte answered, “They’re not wrong very often. And how could we get a blood sample from him? Besides, the whole idea was crazy. Raney’s first husband, Jake’s father, was Filipino and Jake has his skin color. And at least one of his brown eyes!” Charlotte laughed telling this part, needing some thin element of humor.

“He really has two different eye colors? Like my cat—Effie. Maybe he’s a chimera.”

“A chimera? You mean as in the mythical beast?” Charlotte said.

“Well, no. I was joking. But the other kind—the nonmythical kind—is a genetic glitch. Twins that fuse together. If it happens early enough, before the cells differentiate, they can grow into a completely normal-looking person. Only the person has two different cell lines, one from each fertilized egg. Kidney from one twin, liver from another . . .”

“You’re kidding. That exists?” Charlotte said.

“For sure in animals. Marmosets. Tortoiseshell cats—that’s how I know about it. Calicoes and tortoiseshells are almost always female, but one in a few thousand is a male, like Effie, and those can be a chimera.”

“But not in people . . .” Charlotte said.

Will said, “I’ve read about it. It happens in people. Rarely. Or maybe not so rarely—no one’s testing for it, so who knows? They’d look normal, or something as subtle as different-colored eyes.” He smiled, but when he looked at her, Charlotte caught a hint of something sad crossing his face, as if he’d begun to appreciate how Jake’s story related to his sister’s romantic relationship. He shifted the conversation to the topic at hand. “Listen, I’ll get the boy into our spine clinic if you can work on getting the permission from the foster home or his stepfather. Maybe our social workers can help. You’ll call me?”

—

After Will and Pamela left, Eric seemed sober, depleted. He said he wanted to go to his apartment. He had more work to do on his last chapter, and anyway, it was office hours in Sweden, where his genetics resource lived. Charlotte could tell he was upset. Pamela and Will had been circumspect about Eric’s medical history but still, it was out there now. So this would be their own last chapter, then. Everything finally out in the open just before they separated. She tossed with an unsettled mind, half-dreaming of being asleep and waking in disappointment that the dream was only a dream. She startled in jagged alarm when she heard Eric’s key in the lock. It was just after two in the morning, 9:00 a.m. in Stockholm.

He looked so somber it worried her; her first thought, as always, was that his headaches were back, a tingling in his arm or blurring of his vision that might warn his tumor was recurring. “Eric? What is it? Are you sick?”

“I’m fine. Stop worrying about my head.” He pulled away, agitated. “Do you remember what Pamela was talking about. Jake’s eyes?” She didn’t answer, not following him. “Will is right. They aren’t freaks or myths.”

“What? Who’s not a myth?”

And then she heard why Eric had been so quiet at the end of the evening, why he had left so abruptly. He told her about the chapter he’d been working on, and the quirky path of research it had turned up: a kidney transplant patient whose blood was matched against her three sons, hoping one might be a donor. The DNA tests “proved” two of her boys could not be her children. But when they tested cells from different parts of the mother’s body they found genetic prints from two different individuals. Different parts of her had arisen from different fertilized eggs. Twins fused into one person. “The woman was a chimera. I called Fikkers, the geneticist in Sweden. He’s seen it—people who have two different blood types. Different tissues with unique cell lines. Hermaphrodites sometimes—he even talked about people with different eye colors, like Jake.”

“It sounds too crazy. Why haven’t I heard about it before?”

“No one knew about this before we were tissue matching. Most would look completely normal.”

Charlotte said, “Are you saying Jake is the product of two fathers? You and . . . ?”

“Cleet. Raney’s first husband. The man she married a month after I made love to her.” He waited for some sign from Charlotte—excitement or astonishment or utter disbelief. “We need to get different tissue from him. We have to test Jake’s blood.”

—

It took two days to find Jake. Louise didn’t answer her phone or return Charlotte’s message—she should have been there if Jake was still living with her, Charlotte thought. She began to wonder if he’d been sent back to his stepfather’s. She was ready to call Blake Simpson when Eric called from her house. “Louise telephoned here. She wants to talk to you. She doesn’t have Jake anymore.”

“Did she say where he is?” Charlotte asked.

“She won’t tell me. She
can’t
tell me. ‘Confidentiality police,’ as she put it. But since you’re Raney’s doctor she can tell you—I think she’s using that as an excuse to tell either of us anything.”

Charlotte could almost see Louise’s broad face as soon as she heard her voice on the phone. Louise began with a deep, plaintive sigh in which Charlotte heard the trials of Jake and all the hundreds of children who’d come before him. “A lot of children spend a few days with me and feel ready to look at their homes and their folks with fresh consideration,” Louise told Charlotte. “They shake off all the angry words that made ’em run. You know how it is, that age. Kids keep the last argument spinnin’ around and around—mouse on a wheel. But after some time they start to miss things—their room, friends, Mom’s food, Dad’s jokes. Eventually, usually, even Mom and Dad. I’m talking about kids like Jake, now. Not the ones with the real horror stories.

“I met Mr. Boughton. Read all the records from the social worker. There’s nothin’ there that would excuse us for taking Jake out of that household.”

Charlotte was holding the phone with two hands like a strong grip might change what she heard. “But Jake told me he didn’t want to go back to his stepdad,” she said. “He was clear about that. Did anyone—the social worker, I guess—do a thorough investigation? I mean, not all abuse is physical.”

Louise let out a sympathetic laugh. It could have felt belittling except that Louise sounded almost grateful for Charlotte’s naïveté—a reminder, perhaps, that not everyone had seen so many ruined lives. “David Boughton isn’t the best man, but he isn’t necessarily a bad man. The mother’s accident has been a trauma to both of them—him and Jake. The main reason Jake ran away was to get to her. Boughton could be a decent father in the long run.” She paused. “You would tell me otherwise, if you had any facts?”

“I think Jake has scoliosis—maybe something even more serious. He said his mother wanted him to see a doctor.”

“Boughton says Jake has seen at least three doctors in the last few months,” Louise said, pausing as if she hoped Charlotte had something more.

“If Jake doesn’t want to live with him . . .” Charlotte said.

“I asked if you had any facts.”

Charlotte bit her lip. What
facts
did she know about David? “So does Jake have to go back to him? There’s no option?”

“Actually, there is one option. Our twelve-year-old boy, who sometimes has trouble stringing a dozen words together, has filed dependency proceedings. With some help from DCF—Department of Children and Family Services. He’s asking to be permanently removed from David Boughton’s care.”

“A child can do that? A minor?”

“Yes. And there’s a chance the judge will listen to him. Jake doesn’t seem to be budging and Boughton isn’t begging to get him back.” Louise drew her words out cautiously, which made it sound less like the victory Charlotte was starting to hope for.

“Well, wouldn’t that be better for him if he doesn’t like his stepfather?” she asked.

Louise took a long time to answer. “May I ask, is there any chance, from what you can tell, that Jake’s mother will make it home?”

Suddenly Charlotte felt like she was back in the conference room again, crying not with thankfulness that Raney had survived when they turned off the ventilator, but with regret. “In my opinion? No.”

“Do you know if she, or Jake’s father, Flores, has
any
living relatives? Outside of the Philippines?”

Charlotte began to understand where Louise was going. “No. Not that I know about.”

“Dr. Reese, have you known many children who grew up in foster care?” It was clearly a rhetorical question. “There are many fine people helping kids like Jake. But you might read up on the statistics before you assure yourself that he’s better there than with Mr. Boughton. Placing an adolescent boy is not easy. Sometimes the best choice is not a perfect choice.”

“Is there any chance Jake could stay with you?” Charlotte asked.

Louise’s reply was preceded by another heavy sigh. “I’m sixty-eight now. My home is for urgent intervention. Short term.” She paused. “Boys like Jake make that my own hard choice.”

“Right. I understand.”

“Do you think Jake should see his mother? Even if they can’t talk?” Louise asked.

Charlotte saw Raney in her mind, immobile, unresponsive, her muscles wasted—as if demonic magical creatures had stolen the real mother away and replaced her with a false image. How would he react to that? Was it better to see her in the process of letting go? Or to remember what she’d been? “I don’t know the answer to that. Maybe no one does.”

Louise said she would try to let Charlotte and Eric know how Jake was faring, but she herself was unlikely to be involved much longer. They were about to hang up when Charlotte asked, “Louise? What if . . . What if someone related to Jake turned up? What then?”

“Well, the judge always prefers to place a child with a relative.”

“What if they don’t even know each other?”

“Even then. Blood over water.” Louise was quiet on the other end of the line. “What kind of relative are you referring to?”

Charlotte took a full breath and held it a moment. “What if Jake’s biological father was another man. Not Flores. Someone Jake had never met.”

“Someone Jake had never met,” Louise repeated in a solemn and carefully objective voice, and Charlotte saw Eric and Jake sitting side by side at Louise’s dinner table, their faces so strikingly similar. “Well, like I said,” Louise continued, “the court always prefers blood. Jake will be assigned a GAL—guardian ad litem—for the dependency proceedings. They’ll know.”

“Ah,” said Charlotte quietly.

“They could be sure any paternity claim was handled right. Legal proof and all.” She gave Charlotte a minute to say something, then sounded like she’d resolved any question in her own mind. “I’ll get that name for you. Should know in a few days. I’ll make sure you’re in contact.”

—

Over dinner Charlotte told Eric about Jake’s dependency hearing and the disappointing news that he could not stay with Louise. But she didn’t share the conversation about paternity. She wanted to talk to the guardian ad litem first. She wanted to be sure. They talked a lot, however, about whether Jake should be brought to Seattle to see his mother. The entire conversation left them both depressed, realizing they were attached to a child legally beyond their reach. The only good outcome of foster care, they agreed, was that someone other than David would handle Jake’s medical problems.
If
Jake’s plea for foster care was approved.
If
the foster home took him to the right doctor.

Eric pushed his half-eaten meal away. “Did you ask Louise if it’s possible to get a blood sample from Jake?”

She hesitated before she said, “No.” Which was the truth, if not all of it.

“I don’t guess that would be an easy request to explain, would it?”

The next day, though, Charlotte got a second phone call about Jake. This one from Katherine Hemling, Jake’s court-assigned guardian. Louise had asked her to call. Jake’s dependency hearing would be coming up next week.

“Do you know where he would live if the judge lets him leave his stepfather’s?” Charlotte asked her.

“Not yet. We’ll wait for the order before we start that hunt. We have a shortage of foster parents in Jefferson County—as you might guess.”

“Ms. Hemling, Jake has been having problems with his back. When I saw him—it wasn’t a formal exam, of course—but I think he has scoliosis. Maybe something worse. He needs to see a specialist as soon as possible. Will someone, whoever he lives with, be able to get medical care for him?”

“Oh, the state would
pay
for care.” She said it with a mix of both assurance and pessimism. “They do their best, Dr. Reese. But even at their best it’s a cumbersome responsibility for most homes.”

Now, thought Charlotte. Now, before she hangs up
.
“I have another question. What if Jake had a blood relative?”

“We’ve already looked. Believe me—we would always prefer that to foster care.”

“What if someone could prove he was Jake’s biological father?”

Katherine was quiet for a moment. “Well, can he? If so, if a DNA test proved it, he could file a paternity claim requesting custody. Or are you just asking to ask?”

Charlotte told her, then, about Eric and Raney, the timing of their romance with Jake’s birth, the physical similarities. The relatively rare genetically inherited disorder they both likely shared. And when Katherine suggested a simple buccal swab, Charlotte told her why it would not be that simple. She told her about chimeras. After she had explained it all—down to the cats—Charlotte asked if the court might order a blood sample from Jake. Possibly other tissue if that was not definitive.