Chapter 6 - THE THIRD CHILD
Marcus denied it immediately.
“I don't have another child.”
We were in my attorney's office.
Ethan sat beside me.
Marcus across the table.
My lawyer, Rachel, placed the lab report between us.
“The genetic match is strong.”
Marcus stared at it.
“Then the database is wrong.”
Ethan looked almost bored.
“That's becoming your favorite explanation.”
Rachel asked whether Marcus had other relationships.
He said no.
I looked at him.
“Before me?”
He hesitated.
“There were women.”
“How many?”
“Audrey—”
“Enough that you can't answer?”
“This was twenty years ago.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“Apparently one of those twenty years ago is currently in a DNA database.”
Marcus rubbed his temples.
The lab contacted the other participant for permission.
He agreed to a direct relationship test.
His name was Noah Bennett.
Twenty-one.
Living in Fort Collins.
Two days later, results confirmed it.
Ethan and Noah were paternal half-brothers.
Marcus stared at the document for a long time.
Then whispered the mother's name.
“Claire.”
He remembered.
Claire Bennett.
A graduate student he dated briefly before meeting me.
“She never told me.”
Noah agreed to meet.
I expected anger.
Instead, he seemed nervous.
He had grown up believing his father was a man named Samuel Bennett.
Samuel died when Noah was twelve.
Noah loved him.
He had only taken a DNA test to learn about ancestry.
“I don't need another dad,” Noah said quickly.
Marcus looked as though the statement hurt.
Good.
Maybe now he understood fatherhood wasn't something you could simply arrive late and claim.
But Noah hadn't come only for DNA.
His mother had died six months earlier.
While sorting her belongings, he found letters addressed to Marcus.
Returned unopened.
Marcus picked one up.
His old college apartment address was crossed out.
Forwarding expired.
Claire had tried to contact him.
Four times.
The last letter was written shortly after Noah's birth.
Marcus opened it with shaking hands.
The first paragraph confirmed she believed Noah was his.
The second explained why she eventually stopped trying.
Then came something stranger.
Claire wrote:
I contacted Evelyn because she said she could reach you.
Everyone looked at Marcus.
He went pale.
“Evelyn?”
Noah nodded.
“My mom wrote that Evelyn promised to tell you.”
That meant Evelyn had known Marcus had another biological son.
For more than twenty years.
And she had never told him.
Then Noah pulled out one final letter.
“This one wasn't from my mother.”
The handwriting belonged to Evelyn.
It was addressed to Claire.
Stay away from Marcus. He has a family now. If you contact him again, I will make sure he never sees your child.
Marcus read it twice.
Ethan looked at him.
“You missed one son because you chose Evelyn.”
May you like
Then he looked at Noah.
“And you missed another because Evelyn chose for you.”
