Chapter 10
I laughed through my tears.
Dad’s mother.
My grandmother.
The redhead.
The woman whose photograph had hung in his office for thirty years.
Then the recording ended.
For several minutes, Mom and I simply sat there.
My phone rang.
Elias.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
His voice sounded strange.
“The results came.”
My heart jumped.
Already?
The lab had received our samples earlier than expected.
The email was sitting unopened.
Elias wanted to wait for me.
I drove home with Dad’s letter in my purse.
When I arrived, Elias was sitting at the kitchen table.
Ren was asleep upstairs.
The laptop sat between us.
“You ready?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“No matter what—”
I almost laughed.
“There is no ‘no matter what.’”
He nodded.
I opened the email.
The number appeared in black letters.
Probability of paternity: 99.9999%.
Elias stared.
Then he closed his eyes.
A sound escaped him somewhere between laughter and a sob.
I didn’t feel triumphant.
I thought I would.
I thought I would want to print the result and shove it into everybody’s face.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Elias stood.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“I should never have doubted you.”
“I know.”
“I don’t deserve—”
“Stop.”
He looked at me.
“If we’re going to stay married, we don’t spend the rest of our lives punishing each other for this.”
He began crying.
I walked around the table and held him.
For the first time in months, I felt his entire body relax.
Then I told him everything about Marlo.
The adoption.
Dad’s recordings.
The trust.
The forged deed.
The theft.
He listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he sat silently for a long time.
Then he said:
“So she found out her father wasn’t biologically her father…”
“Yes.”
“…and then spent a year trying to make me believe I wasn’t Ren’s father.”
“Yes.”
He stared at nothing.
“That’s twisted.”
“It’s sad.”
“Both can be true.”
He was right.
Both were true.
The next week, Mom hired an attorney.
The deed was challenged.
Because the property was already held by the trust, Marlo’s recorded transfer had no legal effect.
The bank opened a fraud investigation into the withdrawals.
A handwriting expert compared the deed signature with Dad’s medical paperwork.
It was forged.
Marlo called me twelve times after receiving the attorney’s letter.
I didn’t answer.
Then she came to my house.
I saw her through the doorbell camera.