Identity

by Ingrid Thoft

  “Great. Well, one of your clients is exploring the option of suing to learn the identity of her donor.”

  It was a tiny motion, but Ellen’s shoulders seemed to rise ever so slightly.

  Then she smiled. “Like pregnancy and childbirth aren’t stressful enough. Throw in assisted reproduction and life really gets turned upside down.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that sometimes our clients go through stages of uncertainty or ambivalence about the process. It would be odd if they didn’t, but that’s what it usually is—a stage.”

  “So the possibility of a lawsuit doesn’t concern you?”

  Ellen leaned forward and clasped her hands together. “What concerns me is the possibility that one of our clients is unhappy. We want all of our moms and dads to be completely satisfied with the Heritage experience.”

  Fina shook her head slowly. “I don’t think she’s satisfied.”

  “If you could tell me who it is, I could speak with her directly.”

  Fina smiled. “I can’t do that. I’m covered by the attorney-client privilege that my father has with the client. But it doesn’t sound like you’re particularly worried anyway. It’s all good.” Fina stood to leave.

  “I assume your father realizes that whoever the client is, she signed a confidentiality agreement, which is legally binding,” Ellen pointed out. “You’re welcome to talk with our attorneys, but they’ll tell you the same thing.”

  “Every client signs a standard confidentiality agreement?”

  “Of course. Potential parents either choose a donor who wants to remain anonymous or a donor who is willing to be in contact once the child reaches eighteen. Most clients think anonymity is a reasonable trade-off for a baby.”

  “But people must change their minds over time.”

  Ellen shrugged. “It’s been known to happen, but that’s why there’s a legal document—to protect everyone involved.”

  “What about the sibling registries?”

  “What about them?”

  “Doesn’t it put the bank in a vulnerable position if siblings connect with one another and compare notes?”

  “Our mission is creating families. I think it’s fine if half-siblings want to connect with one another, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with the cryobank.”

  “Except it’s a bigger data pool, and maybe kids have a better shot at identifying their donors that way.” Fina knew of some cases where the donor babies had done their own sleuthing and discovered not only their half-siblings but their donors as well.

  “A resourceful child might be able to ferret out his donor’s identity whether or not there are half-siblings.”

  “Digging up that information doesn’t worry you? In terms of the reproductive industry?”

  “Not in the least. Some people say we’re doing God’s work here. What could be wrong with that?”

  “Some people? Not you?”

  Ellen smiled. “Whatever you believe in, I’m sure the powers that be would approve of our work creating happy families, and we can’t ban the Internet, right?”

  “Maybe anonymous donation will soon be a thing of the past,” Fina ventured.

  “Maybe.” Ellen reached into a drawer and pulled out a card, which she handed to Fina. “Our attorneys. Feel free to call them. It’s why we pay them such exorbitant fees.”

  Fina put the card in her bag. “Thank you for your time.”

  “Don’t mention it. If you ever decide to get off that fence and have a baby, let me know.”

  “Just as soon as you create one that self-diapers,” Fina said, and left the office.

  • • •

  “You’re supposed to take me shopping for jeans,” Haley said when Fina answered her phone.

  “Okay.”

  “Like, now—unless you’re too busy, say, shooting someone.” Fina had shot a man a couple of months before in the course of Melanie’s murder investigation. It was a fact that Haley revisited too often for Fina’s taste.

  “I only shoot people if they’re trying to kill me, remember? And I didn’t kill him. And you shouldn’t be thinking about that.”

  “Whatever. Can you pick me up?”

  “Yes. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  Fina put a quick call in to Marnie Frasier and asked for cell numbers for Jess and Tyler. She left a message for Jess and made a plan to stop by Tyler’s workplace later.

  “How’s your nose?” Haley asked after climbing into the car.

  “It’s fine. I told you not to worry about it. I’m a tough old broad.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The good news is that Cristian has offered to teach us some real boxing moves.” Haley looked out the window. Fina glanced at her. “I thought that idea would appeal to you.”

  “I like him, but I don’t know if I want to spend a lot of time with a cop. After everything, it just seems kind of weird.”

  Fina nodded. “I get that, but he’d be there as a friend, not as a cop.”

  Haley shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Think about it. You could bring a couple of friends. That might lighten the mood.”

  The Good Jeans boutique in Newton was small but crammed with denim and huge photos of beautiful people and their sculpted bodies. Fina and Haley had barely stepped over the threshold before a tall, impossibly skinny salesgirl confronted them.

  “I help you?” she asked, a strong Russian accent making her offer of service more like a threat.

  “She needs jeans,” Fina said to “Vera,” and found a comfortable seat by a three-way mirror. Vera interrogated Haley about her size and style preferences and amassed a stack of options. She carried them into a dressing room and directed Haley to start changing. While Fina scrolled through her messages, Vera tidied shelves nearby that already looked perfectly ordered.

  Even after Fina had typed a few e-mail responses, Haley still hadn’t emerged. “Hale? What are you doing in there? Do you need help?”

  “One sec,” she called.

  “She need help?” Vera asked, straightening her spine.

  “No, she’s fine,” Fina said.

  A moment later Haley emerged, encased in a tight pair of skinny jeans, which she studied in the three-way mirror.

  “What do you think?” Haley asked.

  “What happens when you have to go potty? Call the fire department for the Jaws of Life?”

  Haley rolled her eyes. “You’re hilarious. I like ’em.” She turned this way and that. Her long shiny blond hair blanketed her shoulders.

  “Those good fit,” Vera commented.

  Fina ignored her. “They do look good, but did it take all that time to get them on?”

  Haley bit the inside of her cheek. “It took some effort.”

  “I don’t want other areas in your life to suffer because it takes you an hour to get your jeans on every day. When will you get your homework done?”

  “You really do crack yourself up. Hold on. There’s more.” She disappeared behind the curtain.

  Fina tapped her fingers on the arm of the chair. “Are these for school?” she called to Haley.

  “Yes.”

  Haley reappeared in a pair that barely qualified as low-rise. The zipper only required half a dozen teeth.

  “Those are obscene,” Fina commented. “They barely cover your business.” Fina looked at Vera. “Really? There’s nothing that’s a little more family-friendly? Not to start a family—to be around one?”

  “You don’t want her look like old lady.”

  “No, but I don’t want her to look . . . inappropriate.”

  Haley looked down at her feet.

  “I don’t want people to only notice her physical attributes,” Fina clarified. “And we need to keep Aunt Patty happy,” she said to her niece.


  “Fine,” Haley said. “I’ll try some others.”

  Forty-five minutes and ten pairs later, they settled on one acceptable skinny pair and one boot-cut pair. Fina handed over her credit card and nearly swooned at the $450 total. “Jeans used to cost about fifty bucks a pair.”

  “And people used to ride in stagecoaches,” Haley said, reaching for the bag. “Do we really want to go back to the good old days?”

  A couple of doors down, they went into an ice-cream shop and ordered frappes. Haley was slurping on her black-and-white when Fina spoke.

  “You know, if you ever want to talk about . . . stuff . . . I’m happy to listen.”

  Haley shrugged. “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to feel that any topics are off-limits, and I don’t want to pretend that things that happened didn’t. I know that’s Pap and Gammy’s favorite approach.” Fina stirred her coffee frappe with her straw. “Talking, not talking, whatever approach your therapist thinks is healthiest, that’s the approach we should take.”

  “Oh my God. Just have your frappe, Aunt Fina.” They sipped in silence. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my dad?” Haley looked at her pointedly.

  “I hadn’t planned to, but we can talk about him if you want.” Why, oh why, had she said nothing was off-limits?

  “Everyone else wants to know when I’m going to see him.”

  Fina took a long draw of her frappe and was instantly rewarded with a cold headache. She squeezed her eyes shut until it passed. “That’s up to you. I would understand if you didn’t want to see him for a while.”

  “Did you watch last night’s episode of Relationship Rematch?” Haley asked after a moment. Fina had never been a big fan of reality TV, but in the past few months, she’d found the horrendous programming provided a common point of interest with her niece. And it turned out that watching other people’s misery was surprisingly healing.

  • • •

  Fina parked in a lot a few blocks from Harvard Square and ducked into a coffee shop. She sat in a small booth, sipping a diet soda and reviewing a recent newsletter from Renata’s single mothers’ organization. These women were active and organized, but that didn’t really surprise Fina; you had to be to take on single motherhood. She could see the wisdom of a supportive, like-minded community, but Fina wasn’t much of a joiner. None of the Ludlows were. Sure, they were members of the Whittaker Club and some professional organizations, but Ludlows were their own little cadre with secret codes and handshakes. Membership in the family generally precluded membership in other groups.

  She left some money on the table and walked to Astral, one of the hot new restaurants in the Boston area. Tyler Frasier was enrolled in a culinary arts college downtown and was spending the summer as a prep cook at the restaurant. He’d agreed to meet Fina before the dinner crunch.

  Fina tapped on the glass door, and a bartender motioned that they were closed. After a small game of charades, he admitted her to the space, which featured lots of bamboo and enormous hanging lanterns. The menu was a fusion of French, Vietnamese, and various cuisines from the Pacific Rim. The bartender directed her to a set of swinging doors that led to the kitchen.

  The kitchen was spotless, with shiny stainless-steel prep areas and enormous multi-burner stoves. Fina walked around a corner and found about ten Hispanic men in chef’s whites seated around a table. They were eating family-style from large platters. There were bowls of tortilla chips and dishes of what looked like salsa in front of them. When she asked for Tyler, one of the men directed her to a counter at the other end of the room.

  “Tyler.” He looked up when she said his name. He was wearing a chef’s coat and those baggy black-and-white-checked pants that you never saw outside a professional kitchen. A blue bandanna was tied around his forehead, and his feet were encased in black Crocs.

  “Hey, Ms. Ludlow,” he said, pausing his chopping.

  “Please, call me Fina.”

  “Sure.” Tyler looked around and called out to the men in Spanish. A conversation ensued with Tyler holding up his hands and knife. Fina stood there awkwardly, but after a moment, an older man with a bright smile carried a stool over to Tyler’s prep area and put it down next to Fina.

  “Gracias,” she said to the man. “I could have gotten that myself.”

  “They just like giving me a hard time,” Tyler said. “I would have gotten it, but . . .” He held up his hands once more.

  “Got it.”

  “So, you wanted to ask me some questions?” Tyler grabbed a carrot from a heaping stack and began to julienne it. His knife moved in a flurry, and he was on to the next carrot before Fina could answer.

  “You sure this is a good idea, talking to me while you’re doing that? I don’t want you to cut yourself.”

  “No worries. I could do this with my eyes closed.”

  Fina watched him produce a mini blizzard of carrot matchsticks. “Okay. Did your mom tell you about Renata Sanchez’s lawsuit?”

  “Yes, but I already knew something was up. Rosie told me a few weeks ago.”

  “She told you her mom was going to sue?”

  “She told me that Renata had some plan up her sleeve.”

  “That makes her sound kind of sneaky.”

  “No, just that when other people might quit, Renata finds another way.” Tyler was accumulating a sizable mound of carrots. The orange color popped against the stainless steel and white of the kitchen.

  “So you know that Rosie is opposed.”

  “Yeah. We’ve kind of agreed to disagree on that one.”

  Fina decided to change tacks. It was often a fruitful interviewing strategy. “How long have you known the Sanchez family?”

  Tyler paused for a moment, his knife hovering over the cutting board. “I don’t really remember not knowing them, but I didn’t know Rosie was our half-sister until about four years ago.”

  “You found out when you were fifteen?”

  “Yup. I went on one of those donor registry sites and got a match right away. It’s cool that she’s our sister. Weird, but cool.”

  “So how does your sister feel about Rosie?”

  “Jess likes Rosie, but she doesn’t think of her as our sister.” A roar of laughter erupted from the other end of the room. Fina and Tyler both looked in that direction.

  “I left a message for Jess.”

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting for a callback. She wants no part of SMC drama.”

  Fina nodded. “How did your mom feel when you uncovered the connection with Rosie?”

  “Oh, she was pissed at first—not about Rosie, but that I’d been digging around.” Tyler grinned. “I’m not known for my carefully thought-out decisions.”

  “Most people your age aren’t.”

  “I stress my mom out on a regular basis. Nothing bad came from that particular decision, though. Rosie’s cool. I like having a second sister. Do you have any sisters?”

  Fina paused for a moment. “I kind of had one, but not really.”

  Tyler looked perplexed.

  “I had an older sister who died before I was born. She was a toddler when she died.” Fina had grown up acutely aware that she, Josefina, was a poor substitute for her sister, Josephine. It didn’t take a shrink to see that much of the Ludlow dysfunction could be attributed to this tragedy in their family history.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject.”

  Fina adjusted her butt on the stool. “But what about the lawsuit? Did Renata ask you how you felt about it?”

  Tyler took his container of julienned carrots and opened a large refrigerator behind him. He slid it onto a shelf and pulled out another tray stacked with peeled carrots. He put it down on the table with a bang and reached for one.

  “She didn’t ask Rosie; you think she asked me and Jess?”

&n
bsp; “Well, that’s obnoxious.”

  Tyler laughed. “Yeah, it kind of is.”

  “Do you want to find out the identity of your donor?”

  At the other end of the room, the men were pushing back their chairs and standing up from the table.

  Tyler shrugged. “It could be cool.”

  “What if he isn’t interested in being a dad?”

  Tyler pushed down on the knife and a carrot crunched under its blade. “I’m sure it will work out. Rosie worries about stuff too much. Just like my mom.”

  “I know your mom doesn’t want you to give me a DNA sample,” Fina said. “We talked about it this morning.”

  “She told me, but I’m an adult. I can do what I want.”

  “Indeed you can.” Fina studied him. “So does that mean you’re willing?”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “There’s a lab in the city I’ll send it to that is connected to a DNA database. They’ll let me know if there’s any kind of a match. The odds aren’t high that your dad will show up, but it’s not unheard of for a relative to match. It would give us something to go on.”

  “But then will they destroy my sample? It’s not like I’m planning on murdering anyone . . .” He smiled and the dimples emerged on his cheeks.

  “They’ll destroy the sample, but not the test results. You have to agree to be a part of their database, which they can run other samples against in the future.”

  He twisted his mouth into a small frown. “I don’t really like the idea that my info is on file someplace.”

  “I totally get that. It couldn’t be accessed by law enforcement, though, not without a subpoena, but another half-sibling may use the service someday and get a match with you. They’d have your name. If you aren’t comfortable with that idea, then don’t do it.”

  Tyler put down his knife and walked around the table to Fina. “Renata is like a runaway train: better to hop on than stand in her way. And I like Rosie; might be cool to have another sister or brother.”

  Fina reached into her bag and pulled out the test kit. She ripped open the package, Tyler opened his mouth, and Fina swiped the inside of his cheek. Nearby, one of the other cooks eyed them suspiciously.