Tear Me Apart

by J. T. Ellison

  “But Mom?”

  “Your mom was away at boarding school. I barely saw her.” She is playing with Mindy’s ChapStick, turning it over and over as if remembering the weird dislocation of not having a sister around outside of photos and phone calls.

  “I didn’t know she went to boarding school.”

  “God, what was it called... Kent Country Day, something like that. Really elite school. Mom had to work two jobs to keep her there. Lauren worked, too, she was on scholarship, didn’t get to come home on breaks or anything. Then she went to college and studied art and met your dad and you came along. You know we weren’t super close. She was so much older than me.”

  “Do you remember anything else?”

  “Nope. Sorry, kiddo. We just weren’t the kind of sisters who confided in one another. I could ask about it for you.”

  “No. No way. She’ll know I was snooping.”

  “I’m sure she’d forgive you. You are practically under house arrest, after all. Hey, tell me about the new skis you’re getting for Christmas.”

  “What?”

  “I thought I overheard someone talking about a sponsorship? K2, was it?”

  Mindy squeals, all thoughts of Lauren and the mystery letter gone.

  10

  Juliet is rattled by Mindy’s line of questioning but tries to stay cool.

  There’s an explanation. It’s a mistake. There’s a completely rational reason why the labs don’t match up.

  Mindy is so overjoyed at the thought of the K2 sponsorship that she takes the explanation at face value and doesn’t ask again. They goof around for another twenty minutes until Lauren and Jasper come back, not exactly smiling, but looking a little less peaked.

  “Hey, sis. They have meat loaf and mashed potatoes. Why don’t you go down and grab some?”

  “I think I will. I skipped lunch. Mindy, you want anything?”

  “More Hot Tamales. They have the boxes by the register.”

  “Your wish is my command, princess. Back in a few.”

  Juliet leaves them to adore their daughter. The nurse who busted her is nowhere to be seen, but she waits until she gets to the elevator to call Cameron.

  He answers on the first ring in his crisp British accent.

  “Juliet Ryder, please tell me you’ve decided to chuck that nasty job chasing criminals and come to work for me.”

  “Hey, Cameron. No, sadly, I’m still a slave to the CBI. It’s that whole getting justice for the underrepresented thing. Call me crazy.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  She laughs. “Hey, listen. I actually called to ask a favor. It’s a bit of a delicate situation.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You ran some DNA on a case I’m...involved with.”

  “You know I can’t discuss our cases, Juliet.”

  “I do know that, but the DNA you ran was mine, so I’m giving you permission to look at the results and talk to me about them.”

  “Ah. Juliet, darling, I don’t know that I can do it. Especially since I know you, it’s a total conflict of interest, and—”

  “It’s life and death, Cam. My niece has cancer. You tested us all for a match to do a stem cell transplant. I’ve already seen the results. Something is wrong, and I’m trying to help you save your lab because if it gets out you’re making mistakes, it will sink you, and fast.”

  His voice cools. “That sounds suspiciously like a threat, madam.”

  “It’s not, but, Cameron, seriously, someone in your lab screwed up. Pull the case. Look at it yourself. Run the test again. You don’t want to look bad. This is enough of a high-profile situation without an error muddying the waters.”

  “Your niece—you’re talking about Mindy Wright, the skier?”

  “Yes. I wouldn’t normally ask, but as I said, the test had an obvious issue, so you’re going to want to run it again and get it right. Something might have been contaminated in the process, who knows. But there’s a problem.”

  “Well, if you tell me, it might give me a leg up.”

  “According to the DNA results I saw, I’m not related to her, and neither is her mother. Which would be a miracle of epic proportions, as I met the child before and after she came into the world.”

  “Oh,” he says, a new tone in his voice. “Yes, that might be an issue. It won’t be under your names, though, you know we double-blind everything. What’s that case number?”

  She lists it off, thankful as always for her facility with numbers.

  “I’ll be back to you as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks, Cameron. I owe you one.”

  Juliet buys herself some dinner, scarfs it down, and sits for a while in the cafeteria, thinking.

  Surely there is a mistake. It happens more than people know. Even the best labs have issues.

  She should be ashamed of herself, snooping like that, but thank heavens she did. She is going to save her friend’s reputation, and they’ll find a match for Mindy on the second round, and all will be well.

  11

  Juliet’s phone rings a little past six in the morning, waking her from a deep but uncomfortable sleep in which she is dreaming about squirrels taking over her yard after eating mutant superhero-inducing black-oil sunflower seeds. Two of them have just roared and dumped out the biggest feeder when the chirping begins. It sounds like a cricket, so she rolls with it as part of the dream, but finally drags herself to the surface.

  Chair. Legs under a coat. Hospital.

  That’s right. She opted to stay at the hospital with everyone, instead of trying to make her way to the house. The storm was terrible when she’d curled up in here, but she can tell it has stopped; the room is quiet and light gray, the dawn beginning.

  She stretches and answers the call with a groggy hello.

  “It’s Cameron. And you, my friend, are a bitch. I’ve been up all night trying to prove your theory.”

  Juliet unfolds herself from the chair.

  “Yeah, well I slept in a chair and dreamed of mutant squirrels. What’s up?”

  “The tests are correct. I ran a clean sample from scratch myself. There’s not a genetic match between you and your sister and your niece. Nor her dad, by the way. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, that’s freaking confusing.”

  “It is. I’d start looking at the hospital records from the day of her birth if I were you.”

  “What?”

  “If she’s not a biological match to your sister, then who is she a match to? I’m just saying, there might be a chance there was a screwup at the hospital. It happens.”

  “You mean, like, she was switched with another kid?”

  “You say you knew her before and after birth...then yes, it’s the only explanation.”

  How? How can this be happening? But she bites back her reply. Cameron is good at what he does, and if he says there is no match, then she needs to start looking at the alternatives.

  “I’ll get on it. Jeez. How in the world do I break this news?”

  “Let the doctors handle it. They’ll have seen the results by now and will be coming to say something. I sent them the final reports a few minutes ago.”

  “But this is my sister we’re talking about. My family. I have to give her a heads-up. I don’t want her freaking out in front of Mindy.”

  Cameron answers with a long yawn. “Your call. Let me know what happens, will you? I admit I’m intrigued. It’s not often that we have switched-at-birth cases. If you find the parents, we could publish together. And now I’m going home for a few hours’ rest.”

  “Thanks a lot, Cam. I appreciate it. I owe you one.”

  His laugh is a comforting rumble. “Come work for me, and all will be forgotten and forgiven.”

  “We’ll see... Sleep well. Thanks again.”

 
She sits in silence for a few moments, trying to absorb what she already knew, but hasn’t wanted to believe. There is only one answer possible here, and Juliet does not relish sharing it with her sister.

  Somehow, someway, seventeen years ago, the hospital made a horrible mistake and sent Lauren home with the wrong child.

  * * *

  The doctors come at 7:00 a.m., their faces calm masks. They talk. They are upbeat. This happens sometimes. The donor database is being contacted as they speak. They are sure there will be several matches. And, the doctor from Boston adds, he’s developed a new system that helps alleviate GvHD, graft-versus-host disease, which means he can fine-tune the matches to the point where it is virtually impossible for Mindy’s body to reject the donor cells. New system, highly sophisticated, blah, blah blah. Her chances are even better than before.

  Juliet’s gaze swings from Mindy, who doesn’t look surprised by the news there isn’t a match, to Jasper and Lauren, who look terrified. Juliet feels horrible. She should have warned them; she should have given them a chance to process the information. Carrying secrets has never been her forte, and holding back something this huge from her sister is overwhelming.

  She wonders which doctor is going to break the rest of the news and spare her the agony. She puts her bet on the new guy, the tall, handsome fellow with the Boston accent who gave her a very appreciative glance when he came into the room, thank you very much.

  She missed his name, something like Berger or Barger, so she is mentally calling him Dr. Braveheart. He has that classic nose and lots of long brown hair. He looks like a rebel. He looks like he has nothing to lose.

  She is surprised when the two men simply nod at her and leave without saying a word.

  What’s she supposed to do now? Call them out? Then she’ll have to admit she’s been spying in the files, and that won’t go over well.

  Crap.

  She can’t just let this go. It is too big, too important. Not finding a match is one thing. But the fact that Mindy is not genetically related to her own family? That is a disaster in the making.

  Lauren starts to cry. Juliet spares her a quick glance. Jasper is attending to her, so she follows the doctors into the hall to see if she can glean something off of them. But they are hurrying away, heads down, talking low to each other.

  Gee thanks, guys.

  Back inside the room, Mindy is now holding her mother, trying to calm the flood of tears, while Jasper looks on miserably. Mindy catches her eye, and Juliet sees the fierce pain in them.

  They’ve already given up, her look screams. Don’t you dare give up on me, too.

  “Lauren. Lauren, honey. Come here.” Juliet pulls Lauren from Mindy’s bed and marches her out into the hall. Lauren is like Jell-O, legs wobbling, body malleable, going wherever Juliet leads her, which is right down the hall into the private, quiet room.

  She pushes Lauren inside, shuts the door, leans against it, and crosses her arms.

  “Scream.”

  “What?”

  “Scream. Do it here, do it now. You can’t fall apart in front of her like that. She needs you to fight with her. Not to give up, not to give in.”

  “The odds—”

  “Fuck the odds. This kid is more than the odds. She always has been.”

  “Don’t talk to me like that. You have no idea what it’s been like. What it’s like to lose your heart, your soul. If she dies—”

  “She’s not yours.”

  Lauren stops dead, mouth open in a small little O, a silent scream.

  “What did you just say?”

  Shit.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that.”

  “What in the name of God are you talking about?”

  “The reason there isn’t a match. She’s not your child. Not only isn’t there a match for the stem cells, but there’s not a genetic match at all.”

  “There must be some mistake.”

  “That’s what I thought, too. I saw the file yesterday, and I thought they’d done something wrong, so I called the lab—I know the head of it—and had him redo the tests himself. She’s not your child. The hospital must have made a horrible mistake, and they switched her with another baby. I have no idea how that happened, but it was seventeen years ago. The security and standards have changed dramatically. I bet the other family has no idea, either.”

  “Juliet Ryder, you are out of your mind.”

  Lauren tries to push past her, heading for the door, but Juliet is taller and heavier, and simply stands in the way.

  “I’m not. It’s science. It’s a terrible thing, but this is real, it’s happening, and you have to listen to me. We’re going to have to open an investigation, the CBI will handle it, and of course we’ll be discreet with it, but you know I can’t stay quiet about this. It’s going to get out.”

  “An investigation?” Lauren manages to sound fearful and furious at the same time. “There will be no such thing. This is a mistake. If it were true, the doctors would have said something. You’ve dreamed up all this because you aren’t the center of attention, for once. You are welcome to leave. Leave, now, and don’t come back, and we’ll forget this entire conversation ever happened.”

  “Lauren. You know I can’t do that. It’s not a mistake. Blood doesn’t lie.”

  Lauren looks wild, completely out of control. She wrenches Juliet’s arm away from the door, throws it open and stalks off. Juliet lets her go. Denial. She is in denial. Understandable. It is too much to process. She shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. She handled it poorly. She doesn’t blame Lauren a bit for being pissed off.

  But the truth is the truth, and sooner or later, they are all going to have to face it. Mindy is not a blood relation to them.

  Who does she belong to?

  12

  Lauren’s heart is in her throat. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening!

  She wants to scream; she wants to run. She can’t face them, not like this, when she is torn apart, her heart in a million pieces.

  She takes a lap around the hospital—the way she’s gotten the bulk of her exercise lately. She usually works out with Mindy; though she can’t keep up with everything her daughter does, Lauren can hold her own. Without the work, her muscles are atrophying, and she’s lost weight. She can feel her skin loose on her bones.

  Damn Juliet, and her prying, meddling nature. Lauren hadn’t even thought to ask how her sister managed to see the records before anyone else. And to go straight to the lab—that means how many people know about this? The doctors, surely, the lab owner, plus Juliet. It is only a matter of time before someone talks, someone remarks on it, and then they will all be trotted out in front of the media. What a story. Olympic hopeful Mindy Wright in a scandal. Switched at birth. Not her mother’s daughter.

  Lauren sits down hard on a bench in the first-floor atrium. The snow has stopped, the glass roof is covered. Tiny gleams of sun break through as the melt begins.

  She thinks of Mindy’s adorable, scrunched face, the tiny cries and wagging hands—even as an infant, unable to keep herself still, always wanting to go, to move, to explore. How Lauren learned to swaddle her tight to keep her quiet, how she slept with her in the bed, how she put the baby naked on her chest to bond.

  And then Jasper, and falling in love with him, especially because of his utter and complete devotion to the babe he called his own. The screaming freak girl child he carried around the apartment to let Lauren get a few hours of rest, the two of them doing lap after lap until Mindy no longer yelled, and instead cooed and gurgled into his hair while he talked to her in a language neither of them understood.

  Their baby. They’d been with her almost every day for the past seventeen years. Every bump and bruise, every nightmare. Lauren is assailed by the memories: the look on Mindy’s face when she’d touched sn
ow the first time, three-year-old Mindy on short skis and no poles, coming down the bunny hill at speed with her mouth open in a silent scream of pleasure. They’d taken her up and down that hill fifty times at least, watching in fascination as she became more coordinated, more flexible, how she leaned forward into the hill to allow herself to go faster.

  They’d taken her on a green slope that first afternoon, trying to keep her hands in theirs, but she’d darted away and slid down the hill, already mimicking the side-to-side motion she saw from the other skiers. They’d caught up to her at the base of the slope, where she sat on her bottom with her mittens off, her hands in the icy slush, making tiny snowballs. She’d looked at them like, hey, what took you so long? and gave them a baby-toothed smile.

  Gen, Mama.

  Even as a baby, Mindy had been at one with the mountain. Even when fun became training, training, training, and the enthusiasm the tiny girl had for the mountain was dimmed by the enforced discipline of her mother and coach, and days went by when she narrowed her eyes and didn’t speak to Lauren because she didn’t want to put on her skis, didn’t want to go out in the blizzard, didn’t want to have another meal of chicken and rice and spinach, didn’t want to do the leg press and ballet, and Lauren would remind her what was at stake, that she wasn’t a quitter, even then, she’d find abandon on the slopes.

  Of course, she is theirs. Of course, she is Lauren’s.

  Blood doesn’t lie.

  Her cell phone rings. Jasper. She wipes her eyes, sniffs. Forces some cheer into her tone.

  “Hey, babe. I’m just, uh, taking a walk.”

  “Mindy’s asking for you. She’s asking questions.”

  Panic floods her system. “Questions? About what?”

  There is uncharacteristic stress in Jasper’s voice. “What do you think, Lauren? She wants to know what her chances are. She wants to get an idea of what’s ahead. Not what the doctors are saying, but what you think. She wants reassurance she isn’t going to die. She wants her mother. She wants you.”

  He manages to sound bitter and terrified at the same time.

  “I’m coming. I’m right downstairs. I’ll bring us all some cocoa, and we can talk.”