Chapter 3 - The Other DNA ResultEleanor stared at her sister.
“What are you talking about?”
Margaret approached beneath the portico.
“I asked the laboratory to verify what you did.”
Eleanor frowned.
“You had no authority.”
Margaret laughed.
“That’s interesting coming from someone who stole a child’s hair.”
Tim stood.
“What happened?”
Margaret looked uncomfortable.
“There were two samples submitted.”
Eleanor’s face suddenly changed.
I noticed.
“So?” Tim asked.
Margaret looked at her sister.
“Tell him.”
Eleanor said nothing.
“Tell me what?” Tim demanded.
Margaret handed him the documents.
The first test was exactly what Eleanor had announced.
Ivy did not share a paternal biological relationship with Tim.
No surprise.
But the second test compared Tim’s sample with Eleanor.
Probability of biological maternity:
0%.
Tim read it twice.
Then looked up.
“What?”
I thought he had misunderstood.
So did Eleanor.
“That’s impossible.”
Margaret’s voice was quiet.
“No.”
She looked at Tim.
“It means Eleanor is not your biological mother.”
The world seemed to stop a second time.
Tim stared at the woman who had raised him.
“What is this?”
Eleanor reached for the papers.
Margaret pulled them away.
“Why did you test Tim?” I asked.
Margaret looked at Eleanor.
“Because this family has another secret.”
Eleanor’s face drained.
“Margaret.”
“No.”
Her sister shook her head.
“You don’t get to destroy a child over DNA while hiding this.”
Tim’s hands began shaking.
“What secret?”
Margaret took a breath.
“When Eleanor was twenty-three, she suffered complications after a miscarriage.”
Tim looked between them.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“She was told pregnancy might be impossible.”
Eleanor whispered:
“Stop.”
Margaret continued.
“Three years later, our cousin Anna became pregnant.”
Tim froze.
“Who is Anna?”
“Our cousin.”
Margaret’s eyes softened.
“She was nineteen. Unmarried. Her parents were deeply religious and threatened to throw her out.”
I already understood.
Tim did too.
“No.”
Eleanor cried.
“Tim…”
Margaret continued gently.
“Anna gave birth to a boy.”
Tim stepped backward.
“You.”
Eleanor reached toward him.
He moved away.
“You adopted me?”
“Yes.”
“And never told me?”
“We planned to.”
“When?”
Eleanor could not answer.
Tim laughed, but there was no humor.
“I’m thirty-eight.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“That you would see me differently.”
Tim stared.
Then something almost cruelly ironic passed through his face.
“You mean because you weren’t biologically my mother?”
Eleanor cried harder.
Tim looked toward the mansion.
Hours earlier she had publicly rejected Ivy because DNA supposedly proved she did not belong.
Now the same standard had turned toward Eleanor herself.
Margaret said:
“Anna wanted contact eventually.”
Tim turned sharply.
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know me?”
Margaret hesitated.
“She has followed your life from a distance.”
Eleanor exploded.
“She abandoned him!”
Margaret’s face hardened.
“She was nineteen and pressured by everyone around her.”
“She signed the papers.”
“So did you.”
Margaret stepped closer.
“And then you spent thirty-eight years telling yourself that choosing Tim made you his real mother.”
Eleanor stopped.
Margaret pointed toward Ivy.
“Yet you refused your own granddaughter the exact same grace.”
Silence.
Rain filled it.
Tim looked broken.
I touched his arm.
He turned toward Eleanor.
“Why did you have my DNA sample?”
Eleanor froze.
That question mattered.
She had stolen Ivy’s hair.
But how did she obtain Tim’s sample for comparison?
“I used a toothbrush.”
Tim looked disgusted.
“You stole DNA from both of us.”
“I had to know.”
“No.”
His voice rose.
“You wanted control.”
For the first time, Eleanor had no defense.
We left.
That night Tim sat on the edge of our bed staring at nothing.
Ivy slept between us because she refused to sleep alone.
Finally Tim said:
“My whole life she told me blood matters.”
I took his hand.
“She was probably trying to convince herself.”
“That doesn’t excuse what she did to Ivy.”
“No.”
He looked at our daughter.
“She made me exactly like her.”
I frowned.
“No.”
“I’m raising a child who isn’t biologically mine.”
“That’s where the similarity ends.”
Tim looked at me.
“You never used love as ownership.”
He was quiet.
My phone buzzed.
Eleanor.
Then again.
And again.
I turned it off.
But Tim’s phone rang.
Margaret.
He answered.
She sounded strange.
“Tim, there’s something else.”
He closed his eyes.
“Of course there is.”
Margaret continued.
“Anna wants to meet you.”
Tim stared at the dark bedroom.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“After thirty-eight years?”
Margaret hesitated.
“She says she tried before.”
Tim’s expression changed.
“What does that mean?”
“She says Eleanor stopped her.”
May you like
And suddenly the birthday-party disaster was no longer simply about an arrogant grandmother and a DNA test.
It had opened a door into a lie Tim had been living his entire life.
Related Stories
