Chapter 4The Lies We Are

As I stepped out of the testing center, the world tilted violently. I had to brace myself against the wall to keep from falling.

What was I doing?

I was entertaining the possibility that my husband and my own sister had betrayed me in the most grotesque way imaginable.

I was questioning whether the son I had nearly died for was even mine.

If… if the results confirmed my fears, what would I do?

I couldn't let myself think about it.

The next week was a blur of hollow motions. Mark and I maintained a fragile peace. He became unnervingly attentive, taking over all the housework, cooking elaborate meals, coming home from work on time every single day. He even left his phone unlocked for me to check at will.

The more he tried, the colder I felt. This wasn't atonement. This was the frantic scrambling of a guilty conscience.

Chloe didn't visit, and she barely called. My mother called once to ask if we had fought. I laughed and said no, we were just busy with work.

My mom sighed. "Chloe has always been so close to you. You need to take good care of her."

Take care of her?

Yes. For over twenty years, I had cared for her like she was the most precious thing in the world.

And how had she repaid me?

On the seventh day, I got the call from the center.

I locked myself in my room, steeling myself for what felt like an eternity before I finally found the courage to leave the house.

When I arrived at the center, Mark was standing at the entrance.

He looked like a ghost—gaunt, ashen, with dark, hollowed-out eyes. The moment he saw me, he stumbled forward and grabbed my arm.

"Grace, let's just go home, please?" His voice was a raw, pleading rasp. "We don't have to look. We can tear it up, pretend this never happened… We can go back to how things were…"

I looked at him and felt a sudden, hysterical urge to laugh.

"Mark," I asked quietly, "what are you so afraid of?"

He flinched as if I'd struck him. His grip on my arm went slack.

I ignored him and walked inside.

The report was in a manila envelope. It was thin, but it felt as heavy as a gravestone. I didn't open it there. I walked past Mark, who didn't even dare to try and stop me, and went home.

I locked myself in the bedroom. Mark pounded on the door, his voice shifting from pleading, to shouting, to finally, a broken whimper.

I heard none of it.

I slid down with my back against the door, my fingers trembling as I tore open the seal. I stared at the single line at the bottom of the page for a long, long time, until the words burned themselves onto the back of my eyes.

[Regarding Sample A (Chloe) and Sample B (Bobby)]:

[Support for a biological mother-child relationship is found.]

[Probability of maternity: 99.9999%]