Paul remained Christopher’s father.
He died nine years ago.
That meant the two people most likely to know what happened—Paul and my
mother—were gone.
Or so I thought.
PART 17 — THE RESULT
The results arrived on a Thursday morning.
I opened them with Helen and Christopher beside me.
Probability of maternity:
Greater than 99.9 percent.
I stared at the number.
Aaron Cole was my biological son.
The baby I mourned for forty-one years had lived.
PART 18 — THE SECOND TEST
But we needed another answer immediately.
Natalie and Aaron.
If Aaron was my son from Paul and Natalie was my daughter from Robert,
they were maternal half-siblings.
The relationship was biologically close enough that nobody wanted
uncertainty.
Testing confirmed it.
They shared a biological mother.
My daughter had unknowingly married her half-brother.
PART 19 — THE COLLAPSE
Natalie screamed when she learned.
Not at Aaron.
At me.
“How did you not know?”
