My name was there.
So was the baby’s.
But the parental rights section had been altered.
Not the version I had signed.
A different version — one I had never seen.
“This isn’t what I agreed to,” I said.
“No,” Diane said.
“It isn’t.”
“What does this version say?”
She took a breath.
“It says that in the event of any dispute over the surrogacy arrangement, you waive all rights to contest the transfer of the child.
Including in circumstances where the biological parentage differs from what was disclosed to you at the time of signing.”
I looked up from the page.
“What does that mean — biological parentage differs from what was disclosed?”
Diane took off her glasses.
She set them on the table.
“It means,” she said quietly, “that the embryo you were told was created from Marcus’s genetic material may not have been.”
The coffee shop was loud around us.
