Chapter 10 - The Paternity Test
My father did not ask me to take the test.
I offered.
That mattered.
He spent the next hour saying biology would not change anything.
I believed him.
Mostly.
But I needed truth more than comfort.
We went to a private laboratory.
Cheek swabs.
Paperwork.
No drama.
The woman behind the desk asked whether we wanted expedited results.
My father almost laughed.
“Yes.”
We had spent enough years waiting.
Forty-eight hours.
That was the promise.
They were the longest forty-eight hours of my life.
While we waited, police located Diane.
Not because of the phone trace.
Because she escaped.
Trevor had taken her to an empty Northbridge-owned warehouse outside Leesburg.
He left for food.
Rebecca had already gone.
Diane found a loose metal panel in a bathroom ceiling.
She climbed into a maintenance corridor.
Dropped into another room.
Broke a window.
Ran barefoot across a gravel lot until a delivery driver found her.
Her glasses were gone.
Her wrist was sprained.
Her face bruised.
But she was alive.
Police arrested Trevor three hours later.
He immediately asked for a lawyer.
Then, when told Monica had kept the baby and was cooperating, he changed his mind.
People became loyal to truth when lies stopped paying.
Diane agreed to speak.
My father refused to visit her initially.
I went.
She looked terrible.
Not enough for me to forget what she did.
“Why was Caleb at the hospital when I was born?”
I asked before sitting.
Diane closed her eyes.
“Rebecca called him.”
“Why?”
“She was scared.”
“Of what?”
“That Daniel would ask for a paternity test.”
My chest tightened.
“So there was a possibility.”
“Yes.”
I sat.
“Did Mom know who my father was?”
“No.”
The answer landed heavily.
“She had been sleeping with both of them.”
“For how long?”
“Months.”
I felt sick.
My entire childhood rearranged itself.
“Did Dad know?”
“No.”
“Did Caleb?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he say anything?”
“Rebecca made him promise.”
“Why?”
Diane looked toward the door.
“Because Daniel had money.”
There it was again.
The simplest ugly truth.
“Did she love Dad?”
“I think so.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That is not helpful.”
“People can love someone and still use them.”
I looked at her.
“You sound experienced.”
She flinched.
Good.
Diane continued.
“Rebecca had been with Caleb since college.”
“They fought constantly.”
“He was charming but unreliable.”
“Daniel was stable.”
“He wanted marriage.”
“Rebecca chose him.”
“And Caleb stayed around.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Rebecca never really let him go.”
I thought about twenty-nine years of secret connection.
My father had invited his wife’s former fiancé into his company without knowing.
My mother engineered it.
“How did Caleb become CFO?”
“Rebecca pushed Daniel for years.”
“She told him Caleb was brilliant.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
That almost made it worse.
He did not need to be incompetent to be dangerous.
“When did their affair restart?”
Diane looked ashamed.
“It never completely stopped.”
My chest tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“Messages.”
“Trips.”
“Maybe sex.”
“I don’t know every year.”
“You knew.”
“Some.”
“And kept coming to Christmas dinner.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
I stood.
“Why tell me now?”
“Because Rebecca left me in that warehouse.”
I laughed.
“Exactly.”
Diane cried.
“I know how selfish that sounds.”
“It is selfish.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“You are trying to survive.”
She looked down.
“Both can be true.”
That was fair.
I hated that it was fair.
“What happened after I was born?”
“Rebecca called me.”
“She said you looked like Daniel.”
I almost smiled sadly.
Apparently newborn facial analysis determined twenty-nine years of lies.
“Did she ever test me?”
Diane hesitated.
I felt cold.
“What?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“When?”
“When you were two.”
“How?”
“She took hair from your brush.”
“Dad?”
“She took his.”
“Caleb?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Diane began crying.
“I never saw the result.”
“Who did?”
“Rebecca.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
I stood.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
“She never told you?”
“No.”
“Did her behavior change afterward?”
Diane thought.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She stopped threatening to leave Daniel.”
My chest tightened.
That suggested the result favored my father.
Or perhaps the opposite and she chose security anyway.
I left the hospital feeling hollow.
My father waited in the hallway.
He looked at me.
“What did she say?”
I told him everything.
He closed his eyes at the part about the childhood test.
Then he looked at me.
“You are my daughter.”
“I know.”
“No.”
He held my shoulders.
“Listen.”
“You are my daughter if Caleb’s DNA is stamped across every cell in your body.”
My eyes burned.
“I changed your diapers.”
“I taught you to ride a bike.”
“I stayed awake when you had pneumonia.”
“I watched you graduate.”
“I walked you into your first job.”
“I argued with you about every boyfriend.”
I laughed through tears.
He continued.
“He does not get any of that because of biology.”
I hugged him.
For the first time since the pillow fell, I hugged my father.
He broke.
I felt him crying against my shoulder.
“I am so sorry.”
I whispered.
“For what?”
“For all of this.”
He pulled back.
“None of it is yours.”
That was the first thing anyone had said in days that felt clean.
The paternity results arrived the next morning.
My father called me from his kitchen.
“Come over.”
His voice gave nothing away.
I drove too fast.
He sat at the dining table where the pillow had fallen.
The envelope lay between us.
“Did you open it?”
“Yes.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
He looked at me.
Then smiled through tears.
“99.98 percent.”
My knees weakened.
He was my biological father.
Relief hit so hard I started crying.
Then anger followed immediately.
My mother had known for twenty-six years.
She had tested me.
She could have ended uncertainty.
Instead she kept Caleb inside our lives.
My father laughed softly.
“Apparently I worried for nothing.”
“No.”
I sat.
“You worried because Mom created a reason.”
He nodded.
Then his expression changed.
“What?”
I asked.
“The lab report includes something else.”
“What?”
“The technician asked whether I had another close male relative who could be involved.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because some markers were unusually close to a second sample.”
“What second sample?”
My father slid another page toward me.
During the expedited comparison, police had supplied a DNA profile already in a federal database.
Caleb.
His DNA had been collected after investigators detained him for questioning in the Diane kidnapping case.
I stared.
“Why compare him?”
“Tom requested it.”
“And?”
My father looked disturbed.
“The report says Caleb and I share markers consistent with close biological relationship.”
My stomach turned.
“Close like what?”
“Brother.”
Silence.
I stared at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“My parents only had Carol and me.”
“So we thought.”
My father looked toward the old family photographs on the wall.
Caleb Morgan.
My mother’s lifelong lover.
My father’s best friend.
Possibly my father’s biological half-brother.
The conspiracy had just reached another generation.
And suddenly the question was not only why Rebecca chose Daniel instead of Caleb.
May you like
It was whether she had known the two men came from the same family all along.
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