Chapter 5 - THE LETTER MY MOTHER MADE ME KEEP
My mother died nine years ago.
But she had always been better at noticing people than I was.
Two weeks after Ethan was born, she handed me an envelope.
“Keep it,” she said.
“For what?”
“In case you ever need to remember what happened before he was born.”
I thought postpartum hormones had made her dramatic.
I never opened it.
Until that night.
Ethan sat beside me at the kitchen table.
Marcus was staying at a hotel.
Not because I asked.
Because Ethan told him to leave.
The envelope had yellowed.
Inside were three pages in my mother's handwriting.
Audrey,
I hope you never need this.
She wrote about the month before my wedding.
A company retreat in Aspen.
Marcus and I had argued badly.
I had discovered messages from Evelyn.
I left the hotel bar crying.
A coworker named David Hale found me.
David had been my college boyfriend years earlier.
That night, he walked me back to my room.
My mother wrote:
You told me you drank too much and woke the next morning frightened because you could not remember several hours.
My skin went cold.
I remembered the argument.
The drinking.
David helping me.
But I also remembered waking alone.
My mother continued:
You insisted nothing happened. David insisted nothing happened. I believed you. But when you became pregnant shortly afterward, I told you to establish certainty. You refused because you knew Ethan was Marcus's.
I stopped reading.
Ethan stared at me.
“Who is David?”
“Someone I knew before your father.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
“I don't think so.”
The words sounded terrible.
Ethan went quiet.
I hated myself for the uncertainty in his face.
“But I believe Marcus is your father.”
“Belief isn't proof.”
No.
It wasn't.
The next morning, we did the test.
Marcus agreed immediately.
Maybe because he assumed the result would restore something.
Two days passed.
Longest two days of my life.
Then the lab called.
Ethan wanted me beside him when he opened the result.
Marcus joined by video.
Probability of paternity:
99.9998%.
Marcus was Ethan's biological father.
I almost collapsed with relief.
Ethan barely reacted.
“Okay.”
Marcus leaned toward the screen.
“Son—”
“Biology was never the problem.”
Then Ethan ended the call.
I thought that was the end of the paternity question.
It wasn't.
Because the lab technician called me privately twenty minutes later.
“There was an unusual match in the database.”
“What kind?”
“Your son's paternal profile indicates a close biological relative already registered.”
“Marcus?”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who?”
Privacy rules prevented her from giving a name without authorization.
But she could tell me the relationship.
Half-sibling.
May you like
Ethan had a biological half-brother.
And the person wasn't Leo.
