Chapter 2 - The Biological Bomb
Julian slowly turned his head to look at his younger brother. His brow was heavily creased, confusion warring with a sudden, dark suspicion.
“Why would she tell you where she was taking my son, Nathan?” Julian asked, his voice dangerously low.
Nathan looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. He swallowed hard, looking at Sarah for help, but Sarah was paralyzed, staring at the spilled formula seeping into her shoes.
“Julian, I—” Nathan stammered. “I just... we text sometimes. Just checking in on my nephew.”
“You text my fiancée about my son’s medical appointments?” Julian’s voice was rising. He looked down at the baby, who was still wailing, reaching his little hands up.
Julian looked at the baby's brown curls. Then he looked at Nathan’s brown curls. He looked at the baby's hazel eyes. Then he looked at Nathan’s hazel eyes. Julian himself had straight, jet-black hair and piercing blue eyes.
The silence that followed was heavy, thick with the kind of realization that destroys lives.
Before the bomb could fully detonate, Nurse Davis—a veteran pediatric nurse who had worked with me for a decade—stepped out from behind the triage desk holding a manila folder. She was entirely oblivious to the nuclear meltdown happening in the corridor.
“Hayes family?” Nurse Davis called out cheerfully. “I have the pre-op lab results for little Leo’s minor surgery. Everything looks perfect. Complete blood count is normal, and his blood type is confirmed as O-positive, so we have a match on file just in case he needs anything during the procedure.”
Julian blinked, tearing his gaze away from his brother to look at the nurse. “O-positive. Great. Can we get this cleaned up, please?” he barked, gesturing to the shattered bottle.
I didn’t walk away. I couldn’t. The medical math had just clicked into place in my brain, and it was too poetic, too devastatingly perfect, to ignore.
“O-positive,” I repeated, letting the words hang in the air.
Julian glared at me. “Yes, Elena. O-positive. Are you deaf?”
“No, Julian,” I said, my voice eerily calm, carrying the precise, authoritative tone I used when delivering diagnoses. “I’m just doing the math.”
“What math?” he spat.
“Blood type genetics,” I said softly. I took a step closer, my eyes locking onto his. “Do you remember when we were married, Julian? Do you remember how the Red Cross would call you constantly because you are a universal plasma donor? You have AB-negative blood.”
Julian frowned, not understanding. “So what?”
I turned my gaze to Sarah, who was now shaking so violently I could hear her earrings rattling.
“And Sarah,” I continued, “I know your medical history because we were best friends for ten years. You are O-negative. I held your hand when you had to get the RhoGAM shot during a minor scare in your twenties.”
Julian looked between us, his patience snapping. “What is your point, Elena?!”
I smiled. Not a polite smile. A surgeon’s smile—the look I gave right before making an incision.
“An AB parent and an O parent can only produce offspring with A or B blood types. The A and B alleles are dominant,” I stated clearly, letting my voice project so the entire waiting room could hear the lesson in basic biology. “It is genetically, biologically, and scientifically impossible for an AB father and an O mother to have an O-positive child.”
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I paused, letting my eyes flick to Nathan, who was now backing away toward the sliding doors.
“However,” I added, my voice dripping with cold satisfaction, “two people with O blood types can easily produce an O child. Tell me, Nathan... what’s your blood type?”
