Chapter 4 - THE DNA TEST MARCUS HID
Marcus sat down.
Not because anyone invited him.
Because his knees seemed to stop working.
Ethan looked at him with something worse than hatred.
Disbelief.
“You knew?”
Marcus didn't answer.
“Thirteen years?”
“I found out when Leo was five.”
“Then why did you keep going?”
Marcus looked at me.
“I couldn't just disappear from his life.”
Ethan laughed sharply.
“You had no problem disappearing from mine.”
That one landed harder.
Evelyn was still on speakerphone.
She began explaining.
When Leo was five, he needed surgery.
Doctors required detailed family medical history.
Evelyn panicked.
Marcus insisted on a private paternity test.
Result:
0% probability.
Not his child.
He knew.
And yet he kept attending Leo's games, school meetings, birthdays, and doctor visits.
I asked the question that mattered.
“Why?”
Marcus whispered, “Because by then he called me Dad.”
The word made Ethan's face change.
“Leo calls you Dad?”
Nobody answered.
So Ethan looked at the phone.
“Evelyn?”
Her silence answered for her.
My son turned away.
All the missed milestones suddenly looked different.
Marcus hadn't only been helping another household.
He had built another family.
A second one.
One where he practiced fatherhood.
Just not with the son living under his roof.
I thought about every Father's Day breakfast Ethan made as a child.
Every card.
Every gift.
Every empty chair.
“How long?” I asked.
Evelyn cried softly.
“How long has Leo called Marcus Dad?”
“Since he was seven.”
Eleven years.
My husband had let another boy call him Dad for eleven years while his own son gradually stopped.
Marcus stood.
“Audrey, it wasn't like that.”
“What was it like?”
“Leo's biological father wanted nothing to do with him.”
“And that became your responsibility?”
“I loved him.”
Ethan turned around.
“Did you love me?”
Marcus's face broke.
“Of course.”
“Then why did I get whatever was left?”
No one spoke.
Ethan picked up his trophy.
“I need air.”
I followed him.
Marcus called after us.
I didn't stop.
Outside the auditorium, Ethan leaned against a brick wall.
For several minutes, he said nothing.
Then:
“Mom, did you know he had another family?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
“I knew he cared too much about Evelyn. I didn't know how far it went.”
Ethan nodded.
He looked older than eighteen.
Too old.
Then he said something that scared me.
“I want a DNA test.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
He looked through the glass doors at Marcus.
“Because if he lied about Leo for thirteen years, I want to know what else he's lied about.”
“Ethan—”
“Mom.”
His eyes met mine.
“Are you completely sure Marcus is my biological father?”
My mouth went dry.
“Yes.”
Then I remembered a letter my mother had given me eighteen years ago.
May you like
A letter I had never shown Marcus.
And suddenly, for the first time in Ethan's life, I wasn't completely sure.
