The Surrogacy Secret

"Mr. Robinson, I'm so sorry."

Royal stared at the surgeon standing before him, the man's face etched with sadness. This wasn't happening. His brother was a loud, vivacious man with the world at his feet.

"He's gone?" The words barely croaked from his throat.

"His wife? Mindy?" He asked the questions on autopilot, knowing that when his parents returned from the second honeymoon he'd sent them on not three days ago, they would be devastated.

The surgeon shook his head sadly. "Your sister-in-law is currently on life support. We will need the next of kin to make a decision."

"And my niece?"

"Your niece suffered a fair amount of blood loss. We need to talk about this. We asked if there were any key pieces of information we should know, but nobody informed us she was adopted."

"She wasn't adopted," Royal frowned at the surgeon. "She was born out of state, but she was definitely not adopted."

"Her blood type does not match either of her parents," the man said, frowning.

"I'm afraid blood doesn't lie. I would suggest a DNA test to confirm parentage. Perhaps there was a mix-up at the hospital. I'm not sure where she was born," he trailed off.

Royal blinked in confusion. His brother and Mindy had decided they wanted to have the baby back in her home state of Pennsylvania. She was originally from Pittsburgh; her parents were deceased, but she had really wanted their child to have something shared from them. She insisted it felt like a connection to her lost family. They had flitted back and forth until she was close to three months pregnant, and then relocated to Pittsburgh completely for six months. They came back when the baby was a day old.

"All I can tell you, Mr. Robinson, is that your brother has O-positive blood, and your sister-in-law has O-positive blood. Your niece needed a blood transfusion of type B."

He wasn't a stupid man. He had graduated top of his class at every level since kindergarten. His brain was what made him the wealthy and powerful businessman he was today. Yet, as he stood staring at the doctor who was explaining biology to him in the most basic terms, he barely grasped the information.

"You're telling me there is no way they are her parents?"

"It is possible one of them is her parent. I would think in this case, if you saw Mrs. Robinson pregnant, then she could be the biological parent and your brother not."

"Not possible. They loved each other. There is no way on this planet she had an affair and had another man's baby."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson, we have no way to gather the information verbally from either of them. I strongly suggest you get comparative DNA testing for the three of them. If they hid an adoption from the family, they had their own reasons. But given the medical situation we are in now, it might be valuable for Precious to know her medical background."

Royal moved to sit on a chair, his legs shaking. "Do it." He waved to the doctor. "Get it done."

"I know the timing of this request is hard, but your brother had indicated he would donate his organs on his driver's license."

His brother was selfless to the end. Royal considered it and nodded. "It is what he would want. I know it. Please do what you need to do." He paused. "I want to see him."

"Of course. We will bring you to him as soon as we can. Your sister-in-law had her husband listed as next of kin. Is there someone we should call?"

His parents. His mother was going to be inconsolable. His hands shook and he looked back to the doctor. "You can keep Mindy alive until my folks get here? To at least say goodbye?" He blinked back tears. "They just had a forty-year wedding anniversary, and Prince and I sent them to Africa for their second honeymoon. I have them on their way home now, but it's a long flight."

The surgeon nodded. "Of course. We will do our best. Again, I'm sorry for your loss."

"Is Precious going to be okay?"

"She's stable now."

"Of course," he motioned to a nurse. "Take Mr. Robinson to sit with his niece in ICU."

"Thank you." He nodded as his chest tightened. He wanted to rage against the world. His brother, his best friend, confidante, and the life of the family was gone. The man who would often arrive at a family gathering, jump on a table, and scream, "The party has arrived!" was gone. One drunk driver had taken out the heart of his family.

He noted the brightly painted murals on the walls and realized they were in the children's wing of the hospital. Precious, not even five years old, was now an orphan. His parents were in their sixties and would not be able to raise her. His only other sibling was their little sister, Jubilee, a surprise for their parents when his mother had turned forty. Jubilee was twenty-three now and in her first year of law school. There was no way she could take care of a child.

He bent and pressed a kiss to her brow, drawing his thumb across her forehead.

He remembered vaguely his brother saying he had drafted a will and had asked him to be Precious' guardian should anything happen to them, but he couldn't remember if he had gone through with it. He didn't know the first thing about kids.

"Where is Prince?" She slipped into his embrace.

He decided not to say anything yet about the blood matter the surgeon had discussed with him. He would shoulder it alone for now, until he had answers.

When the nurse came to tell them they could go pay their respects to his brother, he held his little sister again while they both broke down. His brother's face was battered and bruised, his head wrapped in bandages. Cranial trauma was what the doctor had said, but he knew. He'd heard the nurses whispering about how part of his brain had been exposed. He had known there was no coming back, but standing here, looking at him on the table, didn't feel real.