At lunch.”
I looked at Joel.
His face had gone very still.
“She was going to present it as a formality,” Marcus continued.
“She has a whole explanation prepared.
She was going to tell you it was something the clinic required.
That it was standard.”
“It’s not standard,” I said.
“No.
It’s not.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
The line was quiet for a moment.
When Marcus spoke again, something in his voice had changed.
The tightness was still there, but underneath it was something that sounded like exhaustion.
“Because I have a daughter,” he said.
“From my first marriage.
She’s nineteen.
And when I read what Penelope had written into that document — the part about voluntary surrender, no dispute — I thought about someone doing that to my daughter.
Asking her to sign away something she didn’t fully understand.” He stopped.
“I couldn’t let it happen.”
I didn’t say anything.
