Chapter Thirty-Five Tessa #3
Bethany Steinmann was my first private client in LA.
First private client ever, in fact. In New York, I’d only ever designed for stores.
Bethany found me through one of the jewelry stores that had commissioned my work.
She liked my aesthetic. I liked her last name, “stone man” in German.
She’d wanted to take the three-carat round diamond from her previous engagement ring and reset it for her new promise ring.
I liked Bethany. I liked the way she thought about jewelry and life.
I made her the perfect ring. When she wanted the perfect family to accompany it, I referred her to Gabe.
“Gabe, did you do this to her too?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Bethany knew.”
I release my balled fist, relieved that he isn’t that much of a monster.
“Her husband wanted a baby, but Bethany was too old.”
I cringe. Too old, as though at forty-four, Bethany had one foot in the grave.
“After six rounds of harvesting, it was clear she had no viable eggs. She was scared her husband would leave her, find a younger wife who could—” He spins his right hand in a circular motion that is meant to confer reproduction.
“One time when he wasn’t at her appointment, she asked me about finding an egg.
Only, she didn’t want her husband to know. Didn’t want any record.”
“So you were just like, ‘Sure, let me break my Hippocratic oath and do it off the books’?”
“No. I mean, I pushed back. I tried to convince her that her husband would come around, that the baby would need to know, for hereditary diseases and predispositions, but she was adamant. She said, ‘Just find someone who looks like me, and no one will ever know.’”
“And that was enough to convince you?”
“It was just supposed to be that one time.”
“But it wasn’t.”
He subtly shakes his head. “A few months later, Bethany’s friend came in, asking for what Bethany had. I tried to dissuade her, but she wouldn’t be reasoned with, and she could have gotten my license revoked.”
“So it’s her fault? The great Dr. Irons, undone by some unstable woman with baby fever.” He frowns, disappointed in me again. “Do I know her? Bethany’s friend?”
He shrugs. “Her name was Liv, Liz. Something like that.”
“You don’t even remember her name?”
“It was five years ago. Do you know how many patients I’ve seen since then? I think she had an Italian accent. Or maybe Spanish?”
Liv Russo. I made her an engagement ring. And anniversary earrings. And a push present.
“And then, from there? What, anytime a woman wanted to use a donated egg without telling anyone, she came to you because you would do it off the books?”
Even before I see the recalculation on his face, I startle at my own naivete.
“Wait, did some of the women not know?”
“I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“Please stop saying that.”
“Do you know the odds of getting pregnant in your forties? At forty-one, forty-two, you have a thirteen point eight percent chance. After that it’s even worse.
Four point two. They were all hoping for a miracle.
No, not hoping. Expecting. With donor eggs, it’s over fifty-five percent right off the bat.
They didn’t have to ask. I knew what they wanted.
When a woman comes in and says, ‘Bethany recommended me,’ or ‘Tara’ or ‘Dianne—’” He starts rattling off names I recognize from my own client roster.
Gabe and I used to joke that we were a packaged deal.
I’d get them hitched, and he’d get them knocked up.
It had sounded so innocent. The whole time, he knew what he was doing.
“When they were over forty and had a referral, I knew what they were really asking for.”
His words send a chill right through me. Not just for what he’s done but how it all leads back to me. It started with Bethany. I recommended my husband.
I don’t want to listen to him anymore as he tries to justify what he did, insisting that he gifted his clients a motherhood they would never otherwise have, the choice he stripped from them and made on their behalf, a choice that could possibly be taken away from them again, if the donors ever found out and decided they wanted their genetic children back.
In the files, I didn’t find any release forms relinquishing their right to their eggs.
Gabe built in no protection for the women he’d violated.
“Gabe.” I can’t hide my horror.
He glowers at me. “You aren’t in the room with them every day. All they want, more than anything in the world, is to be pregnant. They’ll do anything. Pay anything. No questions asked.”
I glance over at Opal, who sleeps peacefully. I’m glad she’s sheltered from this, even if she can’t possibly understand.
“Besides.” His face goes smug. “They all knew, even if they didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know.” I scan my body for instincts I ignored.
My bond with Jasper wasn’t immediate. When we brought him home from the hospital, I was tired, stressed.
All he did was cry. I didn’t know how to help him.
That disconnect, the way anxiety overshadowed affection—it wasn’t because I feared I wasn’t his mother.
It’s because I knew I was. I wanted to protect him, and I didn’t know how.
“I had no idea,” I insist again.
Gabe leans toward the window, the early-morning sunlight outlining the expanse of his broad back, defined from surfing, as he stares out at Cedars’ quiet campus.
“So Aram was in on this too?” Aram would have had to be in on it. Other than to extract the eggs from the follicles, Gabe doesn’t touch the eggs. He wouldn’t have been able to swap them, to fertilize them on his own. “He was fine with you deceiving countless clients?”
Gabe spins toward me, frowning at my interpretation. I will keep reframing his story away from the heroic version he harbors. He deceived his clients. He broke his medical vow and made a shitload of money along the way.
“Aram understood that we were helping these women.”
“Only, now he’s dead. And Regina?”
“She was the reason it all worked.” He relishes some memory before his face falls as he realizes it didn’t work, not in the end.
“Regina came up with the idea for a separate business, of casting calls. It was brilliant, really. We could advertise for phenotypic and genetic matches for clients. And the donors liked her. They trusted her.”
“Because she was one of them?”
“No.” His insistence startles me. “I told you. I didn’t plan for her.
When she started working with us, she demanded to go through the process herself.
Said she needed to be able to tell other women it was safe.
And it was safe. We didn’t flood their systems with drugs like other donor-program companies.
We paid them well. No one was victimized here. ”
“A lot of people were victimized here.” I do the math in my head.
Gabe sees between one and two hundred women a year.
Not all of them would have been implanted with a donor embryo.
What if a third, possibly half, were? Bethany’s daughter is five now.
If he’s been doing this for five years, that could be as many as five hundred babies born as lies.
“How many? How many times did you do this?”
“It’s not like I kept count.” His eyes flit back and forth as he tries to calculate the number of times he betrayed his clients. Whatever approximation he comes up with, he doesn’t want to divulge it to me. It doesn’t matter if it was twenty babies or a thousand. Any number is too many.
“How’d you connect with Regina?”
“She answered an ad on Craigslist.”
“You put up an ad for an egg recruiter on Craigslist?”
“It was for a tutor. At the start, when it was just a patient here and there, I’d put up an ad on Craigslist for a tutor and interview until I found a good match. Regina wasn’t a fit, but there was something about her. From the second I met her, I knew I could trust her.”
His words hit me hard, burning across my incision as I shift, the binder digging into the loose flesh across my abdomen. For some reason, this betrayal feels the worst of all.
“She saw how to make it all work: the office, the legitimate second business, separate staffs at each clinic. The casting calls. The system of running the eggs across the street to Aram. All Regina.”
His words stun me, how easily he deflects blame. How unwilling he is to be introspective, even now.
“So, who killed them? Who’s threatening us?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about the break-in before Regina died?” We both know the other break-in, yesterday, was me. Barb.
Barb. Could Jasper really belong to her? Would she ever try to take him from me?
“Pretty sure that was paparazzi. They’re always lurking.” He says this with such disgust, such arrogance, still superior.
“You think the paparazzi killed Regina and Aram? That makes no sense. What about the restraining order? Was that really for Judy?”
He shakes his head no. I want to lash out at him for vilifying Judy, but I’d believed him. I was willing to assume she was unhinged just because she’s lonely. Nosy.
“Who was it for?”
“Just this dad who thought I should reimburse him when his wife couldn’t get pregnant. It wouldn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Why? His wife didn’t get the special Gabe Irons treatment?”
Gabe frowns like I’m being unnecessarily cruel and trying to hurt him.
Only, it isn’t cruel. Cruel is just another word we use to demean women who don’t back down and submit to the niceties expected of them.
To my surprise, I’m good at being honest. It’s cathartic, saying what I think without regard for how it might make him feel.
“He had a low sperm count and didn’t want to deal with it.”
“You need to go to the police.”
“I’ll lose my medical license.”
“You should have thought of that before.”
Gabe kneels beside my bed. “Let me fix this.”
“There is no fixing this.” My voice is too loud.
It wakes Opal, who whines, then wails. Gabe lifts her from the bassinet like a fragile package.
He holds her. Smells her. Pats her back, and her cries become coos as she’s comforted by him.
Men get away with so much by being good fathers. But not this. Never this.
Gabe brings Opal to me. Her lips are sucking before I’ve even untied my gown. I unswaddle her, exposing her to the cold, harsh reality of this world.
“I’ll go to the police. I will. Give me a few days to get everything in order.
” He isn’t asking. He’s cutting a deal, a confession on his terms. If Gabe goes to the police, Officer Gonzales will listen.
After being doubted and dismissed, I find it difficult to conceive of being believed.
It’s not me he’ll believe. It’s Gabe. And if Gabe speaks to him alone, without me, he can wield a tale that absolves him.
I need to be present for his confession, which won’t be possible with a newborn and a raw incision across my abdomen.
“A few days. You need to stop. Now.”
“I have. We did the last few retrievals Reggie set up. Since she and Aram . . . there’s no one else I trust.”
Did he really just say this? That he’s stopped because he couldn’t find anyone he trusted? Not because he got two people killed? Not because he’s violating his patients? Not because he put his family at risk?
“Do we need to move? Me and the kids,” I quickly clarify. “Should we go somewhere?”
Gabe shrugs. “If they wanted to hurt me, they would have done it already.”
I’m not sure I agree that we can anticipate the behavior of someone we can’t identify, someone we can’t begin to know.
“I’ll leave. That way, no one will have any reason to threaten you,” he adds, as though this is a noble sacrifice he’s making, as if I’m not kicking him out.
I’m too tired to fight with him anymore, and the truth is, I want to go home.
It’s so hard taking Jasper somewhere unfamiliar, navigating new sets of stairs or bookshelves that aren’t secured to the walls, electric fireplaces, or non-childproofed cabinets.
It’s too much for me alone, for my body, limited by fresh stitches and healing wounds.
At home, along the canals, we have neighbors in close proximity, a community who can watch and protect us.
“As soon as I’m home and settled, we’ll go to the police?”
“We’ll get through this,” he says with conviction, like our bond is still iron strong.
You can judge the strength of a metal by how much pressure it can withstand before deteriorating, how far it can be stretched, the impact it can endure, how much compression before it fractures. All metal has a breaking point, especially iron, if it isn’t fortified with anything else.
“I need you to go,” I say. Stretched, impacted, compressed. Not broken.
“I’ll go relieve Marisol.”
“No,” I shout, not wanting him anywhere near my son. But Jasper is Gabe’s son too. Gabe kisses my forehead, then walks over to Opal and strokes her head. As he’s leaving, I shout, “And Gabe? Give me back my phone.”
He hands it to me. He looks so sad and pathetic, though still handsome. I hate that attraction is woven into my feelings for this morally bankrupt man.
“There are all kinds of DNA tests out there. How’d you think this was going to end?”
“Even if they do find out, deep down, they already know.”
“Until one of the donors decides she wants her baby back,” I spit.
Gabe shoots me a confused squint like I’ve just said something incredibly stupid. “They have no claim. They signed all the standard paperwork. It was a totally legitimate business.”
“Except Regina,” I say coolly, and the condescension slips from his face. Except Regina. Only, Regina is dead.
“We’ll sort this out,” Gabe half begs, half insists. “We’ll figure out who’s after us. I’ll keep us safe.”
No, I think. I will.