Chapter 11: No Signature
“I’m not signing it,” Jocelyn said.
Through the phone, I heard paper slide across a hard surface. Then a man’s voice—too low to make out—followed by the quick click of Jocelyn’s deadbolt.
“Is he still there?” I asked.
“Outside. He’s waiting by my car.”
“Are you alone?”
“Noah’s safe. I asked someone I trust to keep him for a while.” Her breath caught. “I’m sorry to ask you for anything.”
“You’re not asking me to forgive you.”
A pause. “No. I’m asking you to meet me.”
I looked at the stack of records on my kitchen table. Grant’s interview had turned every quiet room into a place where I could hear his voice saying personal grievance. I put on my coat.
“Where?”
“The café on High Street. I’ll bring the messages.”
When I arrived, Jocelyn was sitting at a small table near the front window, her coat still on and a manila envelope clutched in both hands. The café was crowded with lunch-hour customers and the hiss of the espresso machine. She looked up as I came in, and for a second neither of us moved.
I chose the chair across from her.
She set the envelope between us. “I didn’t sign his statement.”
“Good.”
“I read it first.” Her mouth twisted. “It says the clinic’s result can’t be trusted, and that I have no reason to believe anything Grant told me about your marriage.”
“You do have reason.”
“Yes.” She pressed her palms against the envelope. “I have messages.”
I didn’t reach for it. “You can show me what you choose. I’m not taking anything from you.”
“I know.” Her eyes shone, but she held my gaze. “That’s why I brought it.”
Inside was a printed conversation, several pages long. Jocelyn had written the dates by hand in the margin. One message from Grant was familiar in its cruelty, though not in its exact words: he wanted her to convince me I was the cause of our infertility. Beneath it, her reply—*I’ll talk to her*—sat in plain black type.
My throat tightened. The café’s warmth and the smell of toasted bread suddenly seemed far away.
“I knew what he wanted me to do,” Jocelyn said. “I did it anyway.”
I turned the page. The next exchange was dated around the time of my canceled appointment. Grant had written that I was going back for more testing, that I was “getting suspicious again.” Then: Tell her it’s pointless. She trusts you. If she cancels, she’ll stop digging into this.
Jocelyn’s reply was shorter.
I’ll handle it.
I stared at those three words until the ink blurred.
“Did you tell me to cancel?” I asked.
“I told you there was no point putting yourself through more tests.” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t know what happened in the portal. I didn’t cancel the appointment. But I helped make it easier for you not to ask why it disappeared.”
The distinction mattered. It did not make the message harmless.
I folded the pages back into the envelope, careful not to tear them. “Thank you for showing me.”
She flinched at the plainness of it. “That’s all?”
“It’s what I can say right now.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not going to pretend this fixes anything.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
For a moment, the two of us sat with the years between us, not softened by apology or made smaller by the public noise. Then the café door opened, letting in a gust of wet air.
Grant came in without looking at the counter. His gaze found our table at once.
Jocelyn’s fingers closed around her cup.
He stopped beside us. “So this is where you brought the records.”
“I brought my messages,” Jocelyn said.
His eyes shifted to me. “You’ve been stealing confidential documents from the clinic, and now you’re collecting hers?”
“I have my own authorized audit,” I said. “The clinic gave me records from my account. Jocelyn brought messages from her phone.”
“Convenient.” He leaned over the table, lowering his voice as if that made the accusation less ugly. “You’ve spent a year trying to punish me, and now you’re pulling her into it.”
“I didn’t ask her to sign anything.”
“No. You just made sure she knew what would happen if she didn’t.”
Jocelyn stood. Her chair scraped loudly against the floor. A few people glanced over.
“Don’t tell her what I think,” she said. “You’ve done enough of that.”
Grant’s face hardened. “You’re upset. You don’t know what you’re putting at risk.”
“I know exactly what I’m refusing to sign.”
He reached toward the envelope. Jocelyn pulled it against her chest.
“Don’t.”
His hand stopped. Not because he was sorry, I thought, but because the whole café could see him.
A man near the counter had turned his phone face down. The barista was watching us over the espresso machine. Grant straightened and gave the room a practiced, wounded look.
“I’m trying to protect my family,” he said.
“Then stop using Noah to threaten his mother,” Jocelyn replied.
Grant’s expression shifted. The mask slipped just enough for me to see the anger beneath it.
I rose, too. “She doesn’t owe you a signature. And I don’t owe you a defense of records I’m allowed to have.”
“You have no idea what those records mean.”
“I know what they don’t prove. They don’t prove whose hands were on the keyboard. I’ve never claimed they do.”
That seemed to irritate him more than a denial would have. He wanted me careless. He wanted one sentence he could cut away from everything around it.
The café door opened again. Dr. Keller stepped inside, carrying no file and wearing his rain-darkened coat. His eyes moved from Grant to Jocelyn and then to me.
“I was nearby,” he said. “Laurel called about how the clinic could authenticate her records without disclosing anyone else’s.”
Grant laughed once. “You’re discussing records in a café now?”
“No,” Keller said. “I’m discussing a process. The clinic can authenticate the audit tied to Laurel’s account through its established channels, with her written consent. It won’t disclose your medical information, the child’s test, or anything belonging to another patient.”
Grant turned on him. “And what does an audit prove? A device label? You can’t prove who was sitting at a keyboard.”
“Not from a device label alone,” Keller said. “The audit documents what the system recorded. It does not identify a person unless the evidence supports that conclusion.”
His careful answer left the air between us bare. It did not accuse Grant, and it did not rescue him.
Grant looked at me. “You hear that? It proves nothing.”
“It proves what it proves,” I said. “I won’t make it say more.”
Jocelyn slid the envelope into her bag. “And I’ll say what I did. Not what you tell me to say.”
Grant’s jaw flexed. “You’ll regret making this public.”
“I already regret what I did in private.”
May you like
He looked from her to me, measuring which of us he could still frighten into silence. Then he leaned closer to my side of the table.
“You want answers from me, Laurel?” His voice was soft enough that the room had to strain to hear it. “Fine. I’ll make you answer me face to face at the clinic.”
