Chapter 8
Kara stared at a four-story medical building in the Westlake district, just off the western shore of Lake Union north of downtown, as Craig parked behind it. She sighed; it had been almost nine years since they had last visited this place, and eleven since the first time. "I never thought I'd come here again." Craig grunted his agreement.
Memories flashed back to her as they crossed the parking lot—feelings really: hope, disappointment, courage, and more heart-wrenching disappointment. Now anger, bewilderment, and some trepidation danced with those old emotions. She had not wanted to return. It had been Craig's idea; they needed to find out where Zach had come from. Obviously, he had come from here. But after this place, where?
They entered the building and, recalling past visits, retraced a familiar path through the halls to the office where—she had believed—her doctor had worked so hard to help her and Craig have a child.
The receptionist, an older, graying woman surrounded by photographs of her grandchildren, greeted them with a pleasant, "Good morning."
Kara took a deep breath. "We don't have an appointment, but we'd like to see Dr. Lakatos just for a moment, if we could. I used to be one of his patients, and I was wondering if he could go over our records with us." She had trusted him; perhaps he would give her an honest answer if she asked him about Zach directly.
The receptionist gave her a sad look. "I'm afraid Dr. Lakatos passed away two years ago. Cancer."
Kara frowned with genuine sympathy. "Oh, I'm sorry." He had always seemed like a good man. And he would have been their best chance to find out how Zach had come to be.
"But would you like to inquire at our records office?" the receptionist offered. Kara accepted, and the woman stepped around the counter and led them down a long hall to a door appropriately marked RECORDS, where a young man greeted them and, receiving Kara's name, quickly located their file.
Kara settled into a seat at one of two tables in the room, opened the folder and divided the papers between herself and Craig. One by one, they scanned them all. Long-buried memories of the twin cycles of hope and failure documented in the pages resurfaced as the minutes stretched on. Two embryos in the first cycle—enough to give them hope. But both had failed. No embryos in the second cycle. Not even one. That failure had broken her.
Kara drew in a steadying breath; things had changed. She had once felt that she would never be happy again, but the intervening years had been good. And now, so unexpectedly, she had a son… But there was no sign of him in the records before her—no embryos set aside, no surrogate mother, no embryonic adoption. Craig showed no indication of having come across a noteworthy find, either.
She continued through her share of the papers, skimming notes on why the doctor had thought she had been unable to become pregnant. The notes were uncertain; "unexplained infertility" was the diagnosis, the same as a lot of other women out there. In time they might have located the problem and overcome it. But she and Craig had been forced to stop trying—forced by debt and weariness and a pair of agonizing failures. There was sorrow in these records, but nothing suspicious. According to these papers, Zach could not possibly exist.
Completing their search, they returned the file to the record keeper. As they stepped back into the hall, Craig clapped his hands together. "Plan B," he said.
"We have a Plan B?"
His eyes were calculating—he had a new idea. "There was a doctor in one of the offices we passed."
He strode ahead to where an office door stood halfway open. Suddenly shifting into a more hesitant demeanor, he knocked. The doctor, a man a few years older than Craig, look up.
"Sorry to bother you," Craig said, "but I just have one question, and I hate, you know, to set up a whole appointment just for one question…"
"Are you patients here?" the doctor asked, rising and walking around his desk to meet them at the doorway.
"Yes—er, we were," Craig told him. "A few years ago, with Dr. Lakatos. We tried in vitro twice, but it didn't work. We were wondering if we could try adopting an embryo."
The doctor folded his arms and leaned casually against the doorpost. "You could," he said, "but I might recommend against it since you've attempted IVF. It would depend on why your attempts failed. If there was a problem with the mother's womb, embryonic adoption might not work any better. You might want to consider a conventional adoption instead. Have you talked with anyone at a clinic that offers embryonic adoptions?"
"We thought this clinic offered them," Craig responded.
Kara caught on to his strategy. "Or at least did a few years ago. We knew a family that adopted their child as an embryo here."
The doctor shook his head. "You must be mistaken. We've never offered embryonic adoptions. We only work directly with the biological parents."
Craig scratched the back of his head and furrowed his brows. "I'm sure they said this was the place." He turned to Kara. "What was their son's name? Zechariah?"
"Yeah, I think that was it."
The doctor betrayed no hint of alarm at the mention of Zach's name. He simply affirmed his last statement with a polite shrug.
"Could we maybe find a surrogate mother to help us?" Kara suggested. "The cost"—she forced herself to say it; perhaps they only supplied embryonic adoptions to clients who could pay well—"the cost is no concern."
The doctor remained patient but undeterred. "Another clinic might be able to help you, but that's outside our practice. Would you like me to look up a clinic you could contact?"
"No, that's all right," Craig answered. "We've taken up too much of your time already. We can find one."
The doctor nodded. "Good luck, then," he said, watching as they departed.
Kara and Craig left the building and returned to the car. Kara felt deflated. Why did every lead they pursued turn up nothing? "So…what's our next step?"
Craig put the car in gear and steered them toward the road. "We could hire a private investigator."
"We can't afford that."
"No, we can't." Craig glanced at her as he drove. He was calculating again. "Kara, we may never find out where Zach came from. I hate to say it, but that's the reality. Maybe we'll think of another plan, or maybe Zach will remember something…but if not, we may never know."
Kara didn't like that thought. Zach was their son, and she wanted to know how. And why. And who had given him birth, and nurtured him, and…for goodness' sakes, who, apart from sending him to school, had kept him locked away inside a house for ten years? Someone had been good to him, or else he would not have turned out so well to this point; but they had been terrible to him, too. But who?
And this was the thought that haunted Kara most: what if those mysterious people came back someday to lay claim to him, to demand him back as suddenly as he had come to them? She wanted to track them down before that could happen. If only she and Craig knew where to look next.
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 48