Chapter 2 - The Hall of the Heirs
The waiting area of the Morrison Fetal Medicine Pavilion was carpeted in a low-pile teal that smelled faintly of industrial carpet shampoo and vanilla-scented air freshener. It was designed to look like a four-star hotel lobby, with recessed lighting, framed black-and-white prints of sleeping newborns resting in wooden bowls, and a brass samovar of decaffeinated cinnamon tea that sat on a walnut credenza near the reception desk.
Grant arrived at 10:48 AM, slightly out of breath, his tie loosened by two inches and his jacket swinging open.
His mother, Carol, was already sitting in the center of the plush curved sofa, surrounded by five members of the Bennett family like a queen holding court in an orthopedic shoe store. She wore her beige St. John knit suit, the one she reserved for Easter services and the annual country club foundation gala, with a triple strand of cultured pearls that clicked against her breastbone every time she leaned forward to offer a pastry.
"Grantland," Carol said, using his full christening name as she rose to meet him. She took his face in both of her manicured hands—her rings were cold, large diamonds set in platinum that had belonged to his grandmother—and kissed both of his cheeks with loud, deliberate smacks. "My boy. Is it done? Are you free?"
"Signed and sealed, Mom," Grant said, grinning as he shook his father’s hand.
Richard Bennett did not stand up, but he reached out with a thick, freckled paw and gave Grant’s forearm a sharp squeeze that was as close to tenderness as the old man ever got. Richard was sixty-eight, with the florid complexion of a man who ate prime rib four nights a week and spent his Saturdays screaming at high-school referees from the second row of the bleachers.
"About time," Richard grunted. "That girl was an anchor around your neck from the day you brought her home from Athens. Never had any ambition. Wanted to spend all her time planting squash in the backyard while you were trying to make partner at the brokerage. A man needs a woman who looks like an asset, not a schoolmarm."
"Where’s Tessa?" Grant asked, looking toward the hallway.
"In room three," his sister April said from the corner armchair. April was twenty-six, the youngest of the three Bennett siblings, and the only one who hadn't taken a job at their father’s commercial leasing firm. She was wearing an oversized green sweater and holding a lukewarm cup of the cinnamon tea in both hands, her knees pulled up toward her chin. "They took her back ten minutes ago to prep the gel. She asked for you twice."
"Did you bring the muffins?" Grant asked, glancing at the wicker basket on the table.
"Cranberry-orange and double chocolate," Carol said proudly, smoothing her skirt. "I told the girl at the desk that we’re all coming back for the scan. Every one of us. This is the first boy in the Bennett line since Grant was born thirty-four years ago. My father’s name was Arthur, and this child will carry Arthur Bennett on his birth certificate. It’s an occasion for the whole family, not just a couple of young people."
April looked down into her tea. "Ellie and Maddie are Bennetts, Mom."
Carol’s smile didn't fade, but it tightened at the corners, the skin around her mouth puckering into that small, dry purse she made whenever someone brought up the property taxes on their summer cabin.
"You know what I mean, April," Carol said smoothly. "Girls are lovely, of course. We all love the girls. But they take their husbands' names eventually, don't they? They go off into other houses. A boy stays. A boy carries the firm. A boy means the name on the sign at Bennett Commercial doesn't get painted over when your father and Grant retire."
"Nora kept her name for three years after the wedding," April muttered.
"And that told us everything we needed to know about her right then, didn't it?" Carol snapped, her voice dropping into that sharp, venomous hiss she used when the help was within earshot. "A girl from a family that couldn't even afford to pay for the rehearsal dinner liquor, acting like her family name was royalty. Grant was too good to her. Far too good. Eleven years of putting up with her little moods and her second-hand furniture."
"Mom," Grant said, touching her shoulder. "Drop it. It’s over. I gave her the girls."
April’s head snapped up. Her tea sloshed over the rim of the paper cup, staining the sleeve of her oversized sweater with a pale brown ring. "You gave her what?"
"Full custody," Grant said, adjusting his collar in the reflection of a framed photograph of a baby’s toes. "No contest. She didn't even ask for mediation on the schedule. She just took the pink sheet and walked out."
"You didn't fight for weekends?" April asked, her voice rising until a receptionist behind the frosted glass partition looked up with a warning glance. "Grant, Ellie has her regional gymnastics meet in three weeks! She’s been practicing that vault routine since June so you could see it!"
"I have the regional sales conference in Chicago that weekend," Grant said without looking at her. "Tessa’s coming with me. We booked the suite at the Drake. Look, April, Nora’s better at that stuff. She doesn't have an office to run. She can drive the girls to their little meets. I’ll send a card."
"A card?" April whispered.
"Grantland," Carol interrupted, her voice sweet as corn syrup as she picked up the basket of muffins by its wicker handle. "The nurse is waving from the corridor. Come along. Richard, get your coat. Arthur Bennett isn't going to wait for his grand entrance."
The seven of them filed down the narrow hallway, their shoes squeaking on the pristine vinyl. Grant walked first, his strides long and confident, his hand resting on his mother’s elbow. Behind them came Richard, his heavy breathing audible over the low hum of the air handlers; Grant’s older brother, Mark, who had brought a video camera on a small tripod; Mark’s wife, Stacey, who was already texting her friends about the baby shower theme; and April, who lagged six paces behind the rest, her arms wrapped around her middle as if she had suddenly developed a stomach cramp.
Room Three was dimly lit, the blinds drawn against the midday sun to improve the contrast on the monitors.
Tessa Rowe lay on the examination table, her blond hair fanned out over a paper-covered pillow. She was twenty-nine, five years younger than Nora, with small, sharp features that were currently smoothed into an expression of triumphant serenity. Her shirt was pulled up to the bottom of her ribcage, exposing a round, pale belly coated in a thick layer of clear, warm acoustic gel.
"There you are," Tessa said, reaching her hand toward Grant the moment he crossed the threshold. Her fingers were long, tipped with fresh white French tips that clicked against his watch buckle. "I was getting nervous. Dr. Morrison had to take an emergency call from labor and delivery, but the tech says he’s coming right in."
"I told you I wouldn't miss it," Grant said, leaning over the metal rail of the bed to press his lips to her forehead. "The courthouse took ten minutes. It’s completely clear, Tess. Nothing between us now."
Carol swept into the room, setting the muffin basket on the small counter beside the glove dispensers and the sharps container. "Tessa, darling, you look positively radiant. Doesn't she look radiant, Richard?"
"Like a million bucks," Richard said from the doorway, leaning his shoulder against the frame because the room was already too crowded for seven people. "Boy’s got plenty of room in there. Look at that belly. That’s a Bennett belly. Grant was carrying high just like that when Carol was seven months along."
"Six months, Richard," Carol corrected with a soft, scolding laugh. "Don't pretend you remember the months. You were in Louisville buying lumber when my water broke."
The heavy wooden door swung open further, and Dr. Morrison stepped inside.
He was a man in his late fifties with thinning gray hair, silver wire-rimmed glasses that sat low on his broad nose, and a permanent crease between his eyebrows from forty years of peering into the gray shadows of prenatal ultrasound monitors. He wore green scrubs under a white lab coat that had a small ink stain over the pocket where an old ballpoint had leaked through the cotton.
He didn't look like a man who enjoyed seven people in an examination room designed for two.
"Good morning," Dr. Morrison said, his eyes scanning the crowd with professional exhaustion. "A bit of a crowd today, Tessa. We usually ask that only the partner remains during the structural scan so we can maintain focus."
"Oh, Doctor, please," Carol said, stepping forward with her pearl necklaces clinking. "We’re the family. I’m Grant’s mother, Carol Bennett, and this is his father, Richard. We’ve been waiting for this grandson for fifteen years. You won't even know we’re here. We just want to see Arthur’s little face."
Dr. Morrison didn't smile. He glanced at the chart in his hands—a thick blue folder with several tabs sticking out from the top—and then at the computer screen on the articulating arm beside the examination bed.
"Right," he said simply. He pulled a rolling stool over with the heel of his clog, sat down, and picked up the ultrasound transducer from its cradle. "Let’s take a look at the anatomical development first. We’ll verify gestational age, check the ventricular flow in the brain, look at the kidneys, and then we’ll move down to the pelvic structures."
"The boy parts," Richard said with a booming chuckle from the doorway. "That’s what we’re here for, Doc."
Dr. Morrison did not look up from the screen. He squeezed another dollop of gel onto the transducer—the blue bottle made a wet, sucking sound that broke the rhythm of Richard’s laugh—and pressed the plastic head against Tessa’s abdomen.
The monitor came alive with gray snow. A rhythmic, galloping sound filled the small room—thump-chug, thump-chug, thump-chug—the rapid, fluttering beat of a fetal heart that sounded like a small bird trapped in an attic.
"One hundred and forty-eight beats per minute," Morrison said, typing three keystrokes on the rubberized keyboard. "Strong rhythm. Four chambers visible. Let’s look at the spine."
Grant squeezed Tessa’s hand. He turned his head toward the door and winked at his father. "Hear that, Dad? Heart of a linebacker."
"Just like his old man," Richard agreed.
Dr. Morrison moved the transducer two inches lower, tilting the angle toward Tessa’s right hip. The image on the screen shifted from the ribbed ladder of the fetal spine to the dark, liquid cavity of the lower abdomen. He froze the frame. He clicked a trackball twice, measuring a tiny gray shadow between two white lines that looked like grains of rice.
He didn't speak for forty seconds.
The room, which had been buzzing with Carol’s whispered commentary about nursery draperies, gradually grew quiet. The sixty-cycle hum of the overhead fixture seemed to drop an octave, filling the corners of Room Three with a dull, heavy vibration.
Dr. Morrison clicked the trackball again. He un-froze the screen, slid the transducer back to the upper abdomen, then returned to the pelvic notch. He pressed slightly harder. Tessa gave a tiny gasp of discomfort.
"Sorry," Morrison murmured.
He didn't look at Tessa. He didn't look at Grant. He reached out with one gloved hand, turned the computer monitor three inches away from the family so that only he could see the display, and clicked a key that brought up a second window on the interface.
"Grant," Dr. Morrison said. His voice was very quiet. It was the tone doctors use when they are checking the date on a biopsy report for the third time to make sure the lab hadn't mixed up the names on the slides.
"Yeah, Doc?" Grant smiled, though the skin around his eyes went slightly rigid. "Everything looking good? He got his mother’s nose or mine?"
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Dr. Morrison took off his wire-rimmed glasses, let them hang from his ears by the earpieces for a second, and laid them on the keyboard. He pulled the chart closer to his knee, turned two pages back, and looked at a yellow lab sheet that had been stapled to the inside cover three weeks earlier.
"Grant," Morrison asked, his eyes settling directly on Grant’s face with a flat, clinical stillness that made Carol’s hand drop from the back of the chair. "When did you have your procedure?"
