Chapter 12

Fredericksburg, Virginia 2012

"Hey!" Dana was all smiles, back from her trip and back to her old self. "I got you a t-shirt!"

"You did?" I was lying on my bed studying. "Where'd you go?"

"Disney World!" Dana grinned at me, holding up a big white t-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it.

"For two weeks?" I giggled.

"Nah, we went to see Mom's sister too. She lives in Miami," Dana shrugged.

"Cool," I nodded. "Hey! I got you something too."

"Really?" Dana sat down on my bed.

"Yeah." I reached under my pillow and pulled out a box, gift wrapped and everything. "Happy Birthday."

"Awww ... I thought you forgot!" she smiled.

"Don't be so dopey. I'm not gonna forget your birthday," I said. "Go on, open it."

"Thanks!" Dana tore into it and pulled out a book, narrowing her eyes. "What is it?"

"It's a diary," I said. "You know, you write stuff in it."

"Like what?"

"Like whatever," I laughed. "Like how you feel about stuff or whatever."

"That's what I got you for!" she laughed at me and I rolled my eyes.

"Well, if you don't like it..."

"No, it's way cool, Jen," she smiled. "Thanks. You can't go reading it though! I'll probably be writing about you mostly."

"I won't," I promised. "See? It's got a little lock on it."

"Yeah. Where's Ronnie?" Dana asked. "I got something for him too."

"What did you get him?"

"A snow globe!" she giggled. "It's got the Little Mermaid in it, like sitting there and Flounder floats around."

"Oh," I laughed. "He'll like that."

"Yeah," Dana nodded happily. "So where is he anyway?"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "Did you look in his room?"

"Duh!" Dana rolled her eyes at me. "So what did I miss while I was gone, huh?"

"Not a thing," I shook my head.

"But you guys were really doing it, huh?" she pursed her lips. "It's cool. I'm not mad or nothing."

"You sure?" I gave the girl a sideways look.

"Yeah, I swear," Dana shrugged. "So he's like gay, huh? That figures."

"Why?" I asked her.

"Well, that's why he doesn't like me, right?" she smiled. "I thought it was something else for awhile there. Like I got bad breath or something."

"He likes you," I grinned. "He just ... Yeah, he's gay."

"Cool."

It was a lie, but a good one if it kept Dana happy. I hadn't spoken to Ron in a week, except maybe a quick hello once in awhile, or asking him to pass the salt at the dinner table. We needed to talk too, but I just wasn't sure how to go about it, or even what I'd say to him. He was pregnant with my baby though; I couldn't change that, just like I couldn't ignore it.

"I got your message," Ron said with a hesitant smile.

"Come on up," I told him and I was in the hay loft, our 'secret place' as I'd called it in the note I'd slipped under his door. It had seemed easier that way. But I was kind of a coward too.

"Okay," he nodded, climbing up the ladder. "Where's Dana?"

"She went to the store with Renee," I said with a grin. "We're safe."

"She got me a snow globe," Ron chuckled, looking around as he reached the top.

"I heard that. Sit here," I patted the straw littered floor next to me. "Little Mermaid, huh?"

"Yeah," Ron shrugged. "It's pretty cool, really. I didn't think I'd like it, but I dunno. If I look at it hard enough, I can see things, you know?"

"Some things are like that," I agreed, feeling his body close to mine as he sat down.

"I shouldn't have said that stuff about your boyfriend," Ron cleared his throat. "That was ... wrong."

"Yeah," I nodded. "It was."

"I got jealous," he was looking down.

"I love Josh," I said. "What we're doing is just..."

"Fooling around?" Ron glanced at me.

"Yeah," I decided. "Like that. It's for fun, you know?"

"I'm gonna have a baby," Ronnie sighed.

"Did you tell Mr. Fox?"

"I'm scared to tell him." Ron sucked at his top lip. "You think he'd take it away?"

"Maybe," I shrugged. "I don't know."

"Or get an abortion," Ron said softly. "He'd probably do that."

"Yeah," I closed my eyes, leaning back against a bale of hay.

"I didn't think he would at first," Ron spoke slowly. "That's why I did it, but now I think he would."

"Did what?"

"Got pregnant," Ron looked at me. "I know where babies come from, Jen."

"Well, yeah..." I narrowed my eyes.

"I wanted it to happen. I was trying," he sighed. "I'm sorry."

"Why didn't you ask me?" I frowned.

"You'd say no," he laughed. "I figured you'd ask anyway, but you never did. Except that first time and after that, I dunno. I just thought you didn't care or forgot or something. I wasn't gonna remind you."

"Shoot. It made me mad." I bounced my left heel off the wood. "You shoulda said something. You told me you were gonna get a diaphragm."

"I know. I was, but ... I'm sorry. I guess that's why all those girls get in trouble, huh?" Ron smiled sheepishly. "It's pretty easy to let it happen."

"Yeah it is," I sighed and I wasn't mad anymore. I'd gotten over it and punished the boy long enough. "Too easy."

We were quiet for ten minutes after that. Probably longer, just watching the afternoon go by, the shadows creeping through the barn.

"I'm getting my mom's lab notes," I said finally. "Mr. Fox called me other day, he's sending a guy down in a week or two."

"That's the stuff about you, right?" Ron looked at me and I nodded. "You think I'm in there too?"

"I don't know," I said and we'd talked about this a little. "He isn't giving me everything. Probably not even half."

"I wish I knew where I came from." Ron leaned back, closing his eyes and I gave him a sad smile.

"I know," I said. "I'll find out if I can, okay?"

"Yeah."

"You gotta see a doctor," I told him, and this had been on my mind.

"I do," Ron said. "Every week, same as you."

"You didn't tell them you're pregnant though."

"No."

"You need to see a real one, like an OB-GYN or something," I said. "You don't know what's going on with your body."

"I stopped taking the drugs."

"I know," I nodded. "But ... You gotta tell Mr. Fox."

"Yeah," Ron agreed, but neither of us really wanted that.

"And..." I cleared my throat, " ... I want to take some blood."

"Mine?" He opened his eyes and looked at me. "Why?"

"Cause I want to know who you are," I told him. "I can do some stuff up at school. They pretty much let me do whatever I want in the labs."

"What're you going to do?"

"I'm gonna check your DNA," I said. "I want to compare it to mine, for one thing. I want to check your chromosomes too."

"See if we're really the same?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Sometimes when I look at you..."

"What?" Ron asked me softly.

" ... You look like my dad," I told him and I'd been thinking about that a lot.

"Really?" Ron smiled.

"Sorta," I shrugged. "You got the same eyes."

"Maybe we're cousins," Ron chuckled and then he caught the look on my face. "What?"

"We wouldn't be cousins," I licked my lips. "If my mom and dad ... if ... I wasn't the first one."

"I don't understand, Jen." Ron narrowed his warm hazel eyes, just like my dad used to do it when he was thinking hard.

"There aren't very many people around who can do what my mom did, even today, and twenty years ago ... She was probably the only one."

"Wait. You think your mom ... made me?"

"My mom and dad," I nodded, except they'd told me I was the only one. They wouldn't have lied to me, I knew that.

"You're my sister?" Ron blinked at me.

"I don't know."

"But why? That's ... I'm five years older than you, it could be anybody," Ron said. "Some other doctor."

"Maybe," I shrugged, but in my heart I didn't think so. Even two years after her death, my mom was still light years ahead of everybody.

"They wouldn't have done that, would they?" Ron swallowed hard. "Your mom and dad, they wouldn't just forget about me. Would they?"

"No," I shook my head and that's what was bothering me the most.

I knew my mom and dad and they weren't like that. They wouldn't make a baby and then leave it in some hospital to grow up cold and lonely and stuck with needles for its whole life. Ron had been like ... tortured. He'd grown up with nobody, not even a last name. He wasn't even a person, so far as the world knew. He didn't exist and that was so wrong. My parents wouldn't ever do that to anybody.

"I'm going to find out though," I said after a minute. "One way or the other, okay?"

"I'm kind of scared." Ron looked at me, watching as I opened a sealed bag with a syringe in it that I'd swiped from Johns Hopkins.

"Me too. Hold this," I said, handing Ron a small gauze pad. "Let me see your arm. Make a fist for me. You got nice veins."

"What if..." Ron winced slightly as I stuck him with the needle.

"Don't tell Mr. Fox about this." I fitted a vacuum tube to the syringe and watched it fill with purplish red blood. Just one vial, I didn't need much at all.

"Okay."

"Seriously." I pulled the tube and then the needle. "He can't know anything about it, alright?"

"Yeah," Ron nodded, pressing the gauze to his arm.

I capped the needle and put it back in the plastic and into my purse. I put the blood in there too, zipping it inside a little pocket. I'd have to make some arrangements up at Johns Hopkins. Lab time wasn't cheap and while they gave me a lot of it, I still had to justify what I was doing. I needed the paperwork, the authorization, but I knew where to get that.

"I guess we should go back down," I said a minute later. "Before Dana gets back."

"She thinks I'm gay anyway," Ron laughed.

"Yeah," I smiled. "She give you a hard time?"

"No, she's actually been pretty sweet," Ron shrugged and then paused, "But..."

"What?"

"I've missed you," Ron looked at me, swallowing hard. "I mean ... I'm sorry and..."

"You might be my brother," I sighed, looking down at his hand as it touched my thigh.

"Not yet," Ron whispered and his voice trembled, he was so afraid I'd reject him again.

"I missed you too," I said after half a minute.

"You did?"

"I ... yeah," I nodded. "I told my boyfriend, Josh ... I told him about us."

"Oh."

"He wasn't really mad," I said. "He just ... I don't know. He wanted to know why."

"What did you say?"

"It was an accident," I giggled. "There isn't any good reason."

"I'm sorry."

"He still loves me," I forced myself to smile. "He wants to come see me."

"Is he going to?" Ron was sliding his fingertips along my legs, bare beneath the cutoff shorts I was wearing.

"I'm going to ask Mr. Fox if he can come," I said. "Just for a little bit, you know?"

"Yeah."

"I haven't seen him in like two years already," I said, mostly to myself. "I miss him so much."

"He's really lucky," Ron sighed.

"Think so?" I smiled at the older boy.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I'd trade places with him in a heartbeat."

I laughed at that and looked into his eyes. "Hey."

"What?"

"Let's go to your room," I said.

"Uh..." Ron swallowed hard. "What's wrong with right here?"

"I wanna see your snow globe," I giggled as his eyes suddenly dropped.

"Oh, I thought you meant..."

"Besides," I bit my bottom lip, "this hay stuff really itches my butt."

"Oh!" Ron looked up again and he was smiling. "Yeah, it does."

"We just gotta make sure we lock the door," I said, standing up and reaching for his hand. "Come on, Becky needs a kiss."

"Heh!" Ron stuck out his tongue at me and we were okay again.

"Professor?" The secretary had let me past after a five minute wait, but I still knocked on the door, peeking around it shyly cause he liked that from his students, particularly the young blonde ones.

I wore my usual green scrubs, a long white smock and just a little makeup, a touch of lipstick and that was it. I had my stethoscope stuffed in one pocket, my clipboard in my hand, a beeper, and three different pens in my pocket. My long golden hair was pulled back in a ponytail between my shoulders and I'd been making rounds like a good student should. After a little more than a year of medical school, I was already finishing my third year of the curriculum, and so I'd become the eyes and ears of Dr. Amir Soeren, resident pathologist and associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School. My Sugar Daddy as we say and my career was very much in his hands.

If he wasn't happy, I wasn't happy.

"Jen, alright. Let's have it." He looked at his watch and frowned.

"Yes sir," I nodded, finding my way into a chair near his big desk and I started going through his patients.

Some forty minutes later we were finishing up and I'd only screwed up twice, just little things and those were largely a matter of opinion, really. I hadn't screwed up at all and we both knew it. But being his student like I was, Soeren needed to find something wrong or he wasn't doing his job, or so the theory went.

" ... patient's sputum contains Mycoplasma pneumoniae. I've got her in isolation and started her on Erythromycin. We should see some improvement in the next twelve hours. I have another B-Series scheduled for twenty two hundred tonight."

"Good. Good job today, Jen." Dr. Soeren was sitting back with his hands behind his head. "Anything else?"

"Well..." I closed the metal cover of my clipboard slowly. "There is one other thing. I was wondering if that offer of bed and breakfast in Martha's Vineyard was still open?"

I smiled and Amir's deep blue eyes widened slightly. He was a good looking man, dark and tall with a thin black beard neatly trimmed. His mother was Persian, his father from Sweden and it was an interesting mix, I thought.

"I believe you gave me a rain check on that," I sat back with a pleasant sigh, crossing my legs and wishing I was wearing a skirt.