“Then you’ll go ahead with the pregnancy.”

“Oh, yes. Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

She was dismissed. No one saw her out. But as she was getting into her car, Camden rushed out of the house, coatless. “Susan! I wanted to thank you. For coming all the way out here to tell us yourself.”

“You already thanked me.”

“Yes. Well. You’re sure the second fetus is no threat to my daughter?”

Susan said deliberately, “Nor is the genetically altered fetus a threat to the naturally conceived one.”

He smiled. His voice was low and wistful. “And you think that should matter to me just as much. But it doesn’t. And why should I fake what I feel? Especially to you?”

Susan opened her car door. She wasn’t ready for this, or she had changed her mind, or something. But then Camden leaned over to close the door, and his manner held no trace of flirtatiousness, no smarmy ingratiation. “I better order a second playpen.”

“Yes.”

“And a second car seat.”

“Yes.”

“But not a second night-shift nurse.”

“That’s up to you.”

“And you.” Abruptly he leaned over and kissed her, a kiss so polite and respectful that Susan was shocked. Neither lust nor conquest would have shocked her; this did. Camden didn’t give her a chance to react; he closed the car door and turned back toward the house. Susan drove toward the gate, her hands shaky on the wheel until amusement replaced shock: It had been a deliberate, blatant, respectful kiss, an engineered enigma. And nothing else could have guaranteed so well that there would have to be another.

She wondered what the Camdens would name their daughters.

* * *

Dr. Ong strode the hospital corridor, which had been dimmed to half-light. From the nurse’s station in Maternity a nurse stepped forward as if to stop him — it was the middle of the night, long past visiting hours — got a good look at his face, and faded back into her station. Around a corner was the viewing glass to the nursery. To Ong’s annoyance, Susan Melling stood pressed against the glass. To his further annoyance, she was crying.