I took a candle from the wicker basket on the lower shelf and struck a long wooden match on the iron plate.

The little flame caught fast and filled the air with the scent of warm wax.

I set the candle in an empty metal socket in the top row and sat down in the second wooden pew.

The pine bench felt hard and cold under my hands.

I watched the light flicker against the dark stone floor.

For six years I’d believed my body was the weak link in a chain that was supposed to carry a family forward.

The lab ledger in my bag proved the failure had been in Spencer’s DNA from the first transfer to the third.