37. Rowan
ROWAN
The envelope has spent eleven days sealed because apparently Erik and I can survive murder, abduction, a private island, and a helicopter extraction while still requiring a negotiated procedure for opening one piece of paper.
We sit at the breakfast table at the estate with the envelope between us and coffee going cold beside Erik's elbow. I've been awake for twenty minutes. He's clearly been awake longer because he's already dressed, shaved, and pretending he hasn't looked at the envelope every ten seconds.
"You should open it." Erik pushes it toward me by less than an inch, then leaves his fingertips resting beside it.
I push it back the same distance. "You carried it around unopened for three days. You earned the adhesive."
"That isn't how medical information works." He looks from the envelope to me.
"It's how it works this morning." I keep one finger against the corner so he can't send it back again.
Erik studies me across the table. "You're delaying."
"I'm appreciating due process."
He leans back in his chair. "You're afraid it says Y."
"I'm afraid it doesn't." I tap the envelope once. "Three girls would mean you're outnumbered immediately."
Erik looks at the paper again, apparently considering the threat. "I've survived worse odds."
"You think that because you haven't met three daughters at sixteen." The possibility has me smiling before I can stop it.
He reaches across the table. "I'm opening it before you turn this into a projection model."
I catch the opposite edge. "You need to wait until we establish what the result actually tells us."
Erik leaves his fingers on the paper instead of tugging. "Serena established it eleven days ago."
"I'm creating a record."
He looks pointedly toward the breakfast dishes. "You're creating one at breakfast."
"That's correct." I keep possession of my side of the envelope until he finally lets go.
Erik sits back with the resigned expression he usually reserves for attorneys charging by the hour. "You can proceed, counsel."
I ignore his satisfaction and give him the same explanation Serena gave me. "If no Y chromosome is detected, all three are girls. If Y is detected, at least one is a boy. We won't know which baby or how many boys until the anatomy survey."
Erik inclines his head toward the envelope. "I agree with that statement."
I study him for a moment. "Do you have a preference?"
"I don't." He reaches for his coffee, but the answer comes too quickly.
"That was too fast."
Erik sets the cup down again and looks at me properly. "I want all three healthy. Everything after that is decoration."
The answer is irritatingly good.
I slide the envelope across the table. "You can open it now."
He tears the seal carefully and removes a single folded page. His attention moves down the first few lines before stopping near the middle, and the calm expression I've learned to read gives me nothing.
"What does it say?" I abandon all prior commitment to procedure and lean forward.
Erik turns the paper toward me.
Y chromosome detected.
I read it twice before looking at him. "At least one of them is a boy."
"At least one." Erik takes the page back and checks the wording himself.
I start laughing.
He looks up from the report. "What's funny?"
"You're checking the language."
"You checked the transfer dates four times." He returns his attention to the page as if a second reading might reveal which fetus supplied the Y chromosome.
I point at the report. "Those were legal documents."
"This concerns my children."
"Our children."
Erik looks at me over the top of the page. "That was implied."
"Implied language is how litigation starts."
Twenty minutes later, we're still arguing about whether a detected Y makes one boy statistically more likely than two.
Neither of us knows enough genetics to support the argument, which doesn't stop Erik from searching peer-reviewed studies while I insist the sample tells us exactly what Serena said it tells us and nothing more.
He eventually puts his phone facedown beside his plate. "We're asking her in person."
I take the report from him and fold it along the existing crease. "She's going to make fun of us."
"She already does."
"That doesn't mean we should provide material." I slip the page back into its envelope.
Erik takes the envelope from me and puts it into my bag before I can start another argument. "You started this."
"I preserved the scope of the evidence."
"You turned fetal sex into evidentiary doctrine." He pushes his chair back and stands.
I take my coffee to the sink, still smiling. "You love me."
"I do." Erik collects my bag from the chair. "That's why I'm not objecting to the billable hour."
I'm still smiling when we leave for Serena's clinic.
The early anatomy survey starts with rules.
Serena points at both of us from beside the ultrasound machine while I settle onto the table. "You'll let me finish each measurement before you ask what I'm seeing."
Erik takes the chair beside me. "That instruction is primarily for Rowan."
"It's primarily for both of you." Serena adjusts the monitor, then looks at him. "You spent eleven days refusing to open a lab result and called my office at seven-twelve this morning to ask whether Y detection changes the probability distribution in triplets."
I turn toward Erik. "You called her?"
He doesn't look embarrassed. "You were in the shower."
Serena reaches for the gel. "This is why I employ office staff."
I lift my shirt and settle back while she prepares the probe. At just over sixteen weeks, there's enough on the screen now that I can make out more than separate sacs and moving shapes. Baby A appears first, and Serena measures the head, abdomen, femur, and fluid before moving on.
"A is measuring appropriately." Serena stores the images and changes the angle. "I'm not seeing anything concerning in the structures I can evaluate at this stage."
Erik leans forward, catches himself before speaking, then settles back in the chair.
I point toward him. "That took effort."
Serena keeps working. "You should reward him later."
"We've got different definitions of reward."
Erik turns toward me with one eyebrow raised. "We don't."
Serena rotates the monitor a fraction away from both of us. "I can make neither of you see the screen."
We behave.
Baby B takes longer because one of our children already resents cooperation. Serena asks me to shift twice before she gets the view she wants, then captures another series of measurements.
"B is also measuring appropriately." She marks the image. "There's good movement, and the structures I can assess look appropriate for gestational age."
I wait until she finishes storing the measurement before asking the question. "Can you tell the sex yet?"
Serena takes one more view of Baby A before pointing. "Baby A appears female."
I turn toward Erik, but he stays focused on the monitor.
Serena moves to the second sac. "Baby B also appears female."
"Two girls." Saying it makes the possibility suddenly concrete in a way the lab report didn't.
Erik reaches toward me, then stops near the edge of the table. I turn my palm up, and he closes his fingers around mine.
Serena moves to Baby C.
I know before she says anything that he's still smaller. The measurements take longer, and Serena repeats two of them before storing the values.
"C remains behind A and B in size." She changes the angle again. "The interval is still within a range I'll monitor rather than intervene on."
Erik waits until she finishes typing. "What are you watching for?"
"Growth restriction, placental insufficiency, and widening discordance between the babies." Serena looks at both of us instead of softening the answer. "Triplet pregnancies get serial growth scans for a reason."
I'm watching the monitor when the word catches up with me. "You called C he."
Serena looks at me.
"You said the babies, then he." I grin before she can pretend otherwise.
She gives up trying to save the answer until the end. "Baby C appears male."
Erik closes his fingers more firmly around mine.
I turn toward him. "Two girls and a boy."
Serena returns to the image and takes another measurement. "Your son is the smallest right now, and I'll watch him more closely."
I hear the first half much more clearly than the second.
Erik leans toward the monitor. "We have our C."
"You're already calling him C as if it's a name." I look from him to the shape on the screen.
"It's his designation."
"He's going to spend seventeen years hearing that story."
Erik looks back at me, entirely untroubled. "He'll survive hearing it."
Serena stores the final images before setting the probe aside. "All three have appropriate heart rates. The hemorrhage has decreased since the hospital scan, which is what I wanted to see. You remain on reduced activity."
I accept the instruction more easily today.
Three heartbeats make compromise easier.
By noon, I'm sitting in a university board hearing wearing a navy dress that hides most of the remaining bruises and a wrist brace that hides none of my choices.
The room is full before we enter. Board members sit along one side, outside counsel and the prosecutor's team occupy the other, while three rows of observers fill the back.
Richard sits alone near his attorney. Vanessa is two seats behind him with a student conduct adviser, and Harper sits beside Mom and Callie.
Erik doesn't sit with me.
His recusal still matters now. He takes a seat with his own counsel several yards away, and I notice the distance without resenting it.
I asked him for a relationship where rules didn't disappear when they became inconvenient.
He's still following the one he filed before he knew there were three children involved.
The prosecutor begins with the filing, which runs more than a thousand pages. Nobody reads all of them aloud, which may be the only mercy Blackthorne has shown anyone this semester.
The summary takes forty minutes.