Chapter 18
“Oh God.”
“No.”
We both realized the same thing.
My daughters had been conceived in October.
The DNA test said Declan was their father.
But identical twins share nearly identical DNA.
A standard paternity test
could not reliably distinguish between Declan and Alexander.
I pushed away from him.
“No.”
Declan whispered:
“Cassidy…”
“He knew me.”
My skin crawled.
“He pretended to be you.”
The memory became poisonous.
I ran to the bathroom and vomited.
Advanced genetic testing took nearly two weeks.
Not standard paternity testing.
Whole-genome sequencing.
Rare somatic mutations.
Differences accumulated after identical twins separated.
The possibility that had seemed impossible became scientifically testable.
Declan refused to leave my side throughout the process.
He slept in the guest room.
He drove the girls to temporary tutoring.
He never touched me unless I initiated it.
And he carried a guilt that was not his.
One night I found him sitting alone in the dark.
“You didn’t do this.”
He stared ahead.
“He wore my face.”
“That isn’t your fault.”
“He entered my house.”
“You didn’t know.”
“He touched you.”
“Declan.”
He covered his face.
“I spent years blaming you for leaving me.
Meanwhile my family was doing things so grotesque I don’t even have words.”
I sat beside him.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No.”
“You remembered.”
“I remembered something confusing.”
He looked at me.
“Cassidy, if those girls are his—”
“They’re mine.”
He stopped.
I repeated it.
“They are mine.”
“Yes.”
“No matter what that test says.”
“Yes.”
“They are not some Hawthorne succession problem.”
“No.”
“They are not an inheritance.”
“No.”
“They are Sophie, Lila, and Harper.”
He nodded.
“And anyone who forgets that goes through me.”
Something fierce entered his expression.
“And me.”
For the first time since the airport, I believed we were standing on the same side of something.
Not husband and wife.
Not exes.
Parents.
Or perhaps something more complicated.
People protecting children from a legacy that had already consumed too many adults.
The results arrived on a Monday morning.
The geneticist asked both of us to sit.
That was never a good sign.
She folded her hands.
“We were able to identify sufficient post-zygotic genetic differences between Declan Hawthorne and the comparative DNA profile investigators obtained for Alexander Warren.”
My heart pounded.
“And?”
She looked at me.
Then Declan.
“Mr.
Declan Hawthorne is not the biological father of the triplets.”
Silence.