“How was your trip?” Christine asked, backing toward the counter, and as soon as she said it, she knew everything was wrong.

“Honey?” Marcus looked at her funny, first with some surprise, then with concern, his handsome features softening. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”

“Yes.” Christine swallowed hard. She didn’t know where to begin. She had rehearsed it but she wasn’t sure where to start.

“Babe, listen. We don’t need to fight about this anymore.” Marcus took a step toward her, with a conciliatory sigh. “I’ve been thinking, the whole way home on the plane. I think best on planes. I get some of my best ideas on planes, you know that.”

Christine nodded. “I know but—”

“No buts. I really think this is going to work out. I spoke with Gary today, and he has our lawsuit all ready to go. He put it to the top of the pile, he said. We have an appointment to go in tomorrow morning to sign it, and he’ll file it. It’s not against Davidow, only Homestead, and—”

“Marcus?”

“I know what you’re going to say, but here’s what I decided. This lawsuit is going to help us both. We’re going to delegate this, the stress of it, the worrying about it. We don’t need this, we don’t need to fight about this.”

Christine wanted to break in, but Marcus was trying to finish his point.

“We can let Gary handle it, that’s what lawyers are for. We have the money, will pay him what it takes. Let’s turn him loose and let him find out about our donor. It’s his job, not ours.”

“Marcus,” Christine said more firmly, unable to take the irony, but Marcus barely seemed to hear her.

“What I also realized on the plane is that we’re dealing with too many hypotheticals. We’re getting worked up over a hypothetical. Jeffcoat could turn out not to be our donor, but we’re acting like he is. There’s no reason to worry until we have to—”

“There’s something I need to tell you.” Christine braced herself, pulling out the tall cherrywood stool at the kitchen island, feeling that she had to sit down. She flashed on those scenes in the movies, when the person with the bad news says to the person who doesn’t know, “you need to sit down,” but the truth was, she was the one who needed to sit down. Because in that moment she realized that the only thing worse than hearing the worst news of your life is being the person who has to deliver the worst news of your life.

“What? Is something the matter?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, what?” Marcus stood tall, facing her, looking every inch the Suburban Dad he so wanted to be in his blue oxford shirt and khakis, but something about the way he was standing, his long arms hanging loose at his sides, his chest open and exposed, made him so vulnerable. She almost couldn’t tell him, and she flashed on Zachary telling her that the human body was a thing of beauty because so many structures protected the heart, but she realized that the human heart simply couldn’t be protected, not by muscle, not by bone, not by anything.

Christine took a deep breath. “I went to Graterford this weekend and met with Zachary Jeffcoat and he told me that he’s Donor 3319. We don’t need a lawsuit to figure that out. We already have the answer.”

Marcus blinked, once, then again, though he remained standing, absolutely motionless, and for a moment, Christine was afraid that he would fall backwards like a cardboard cutout, like the Flat Stanley that the kids in school took everywhere, taking pictures with something that looked like a man but was only a drawing of a man.

“Marcus, I know this is a shock, and I know it’s awful news, but there it is. I wanted to know and I found out.”

“Are you serious?” Marcus asked, his tone hushed. His shock was so complete that it becalmed him, and Murphy, who had been waiting for Marcus to come over and pet him, lowered his head to his paws, knowing that something was wrong.

“Yes, I’m serious,” Christine answered simply. “I can tell you the whole story—”

“Hold on.” Marcus held up a large hand, showing her his palm. “Are you telling me you weren’t in Jersey this weekend?”

“I wasn’t in Jersey.”

Marcus winced slightly, and for some reason, Christine knew she had wounded him, as surely as if she’d stabbed him in the heart, in fact. She could see the impact of the revelation that she had lied to him land even more vividly than she could see the impact of the first revelation, that Zachary was their donor.

“Was Lauren with you?”

“Yes, we went together.”

“How did you get there? Where did you stay?”

“I drove and we stayed at a hotel near the prison.” Christine understood that Marcus had to come up to speed, asking her questions about the details before he began to deal with the headline.

“This was where? Somewhere outside of Philadelphia?”

“Collegeville. It’s in the country.”

“So when we spoke on the phone, you were really in a hotel near the prison?”

“Yes.”

Marcus winced again, wounded a second time, but she had to get him past the preliminaries. “Did Lauren tell Josh where she was?”

“Yes,” Christine had to admit. “Marcus, I’m sorry that I lied to you, I know that was wrong, and I’m sorry about that. But let’s talk about what we learned, which is that he’s our donor. He really is our donor. He told me, completely unprompted. He didn’t know who I was—”

“What did you tell him? Who did you say you were?” Marcus frowned, pained, though his voice remained even and his questions made sense. Christine realized that was probably why he was so good at his job. He could fly down to a job site, elicit the problem by asking questions, then figure out a solution. The only problem was, this time, there was no solution.

“I told him my real name, but I didn’t tell him why I was there. He doesn’t know that he was our donor.”

“You actually met him?” Marcus’s eyes rounded like blue marbles. “You went inside a prison and you met a serial killer?”

“He’s not a serial killer, he hasn’t been linked to the other—”

“Are you kidding me? Am I really hearing this?” Marcus stepped back, flabbergasted. “Did you meet with this serial killer alone?”