“He arrived before the ambulance took me upstairs. He held my hand while I screamed through the contractions. He stood beside the incubator when you were born. And when the nurse asked who could make decisions if I couldn’t, I gave them his name.”
My eyes burned.
“Because he was the person you trusted.”
“Yes.”
“And Robert signed the form?”
“He did.”
Robert shifted in his chair.
“I agreed to a temporary arrangement.”
“Why?”
“Because I was overwhelmed, Aaliyah! I thought I could get my life in order and come back when I was ready.”
“You didn’t come back.”
“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t.”
It was the first honest answer he had given me.
But Denise wasn’t finished.
She reached into the wooden box and removed the faded letter. The paper had been folded so many times that its creases were almost torn through.
“I wrote this the morning after you were born,” she said. “I never sent it.”
“To whom?”
She looked at Marcus.
“To the man I should have chosen before you ever existed.”
Marcus’s face went completely still.
My mother unfolded the letter and began to read: Marcus, if you’re reading this, it means I’ve finally found the courage to admit what I did.
Her voice trembled.
I loved you when I chose him. I loved you when I married him. And last night, when you held our daughter and promised she would never be alone, I realized I had spent years mistaking security for happiness.
I stopped breathing.
“Our daughter?”
The words came out barely above a whisper.
Denise froze.
Marcus closed his eyes.
Robert shot to his feet so violently that his chair fell backward.
“That’s enough!”
I stood too.
“What did she mean by our daughter?”
My mother looked at me with terror in her eyes.
Marcus opened his mouth, but Robert spoke first.
“She meant that she wanted Marcus to be your father. That’s all.”
“Then why are you so afraid of the letter?”
Robert snatched it from my mother’s hands.
The paper tore down the middle.
Denise screamed.
Marcus grabbed Robert’s wrist, but Robert shoved him away and stumbled backward.
“You have no right to do this!” Robert shouted.
I stared at the torn letter in his hands.
He had spent twenty-seven years telling me that Marcus was the man who came after him.
Now, standing in my mother’s living room, he was behaving like a man terrified that I might discover Marcus had been there first.
And as my mother dropped to her knees to retrieve the torn pieces, she whispered something that changed everything.
“Robert, please. Don’t make me tell her about the test.”
Chapter 5: The DNA Report Nobody Was Supposed to See
“The test?” I repeated.
My mother stopped gathering the pieces of the letter.
Robert’s face drained of color.
Marcus looked toward the hallway, his expression so guarded that it frightened me more than the argument had.
“What test?” I demanded.
Nobody answered.
I stepped around the table and picked up the largest piece of the torn letter. The ink had smeared where my mother’s tears had fallen, but the words were still readable: I loved you when I chose him.
I held the fragment against my chest.
“Mom, what test?”
Denise slowly stood.
“There are things about your birth that I didn’t tell you because I thought they would hurt you.”
“You keep saying that. Everyone keeps saying that. I’m twenty-seven years old, and you’re all treating the truth like something I can’t survive.”
Robert shoved the remaining pieces of the letter into his coat pocket.
“Your mother is upset. We should continue this conversation another time.”
“No.” I turned toward him. “You don’t get to decide when I hear the truth.”
He stared at me.
“You’re making a mistake by listening to them.”
“Then give me a reason not to.”
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Marcus stepped closer to the table.
“Aaliyah, sit down.”
“Why?”
“Because what you’re about to hear may change the way you understand your entire childhood.”
I laughed bitterly.
“I think we’re already there.”
He pulled out a chair.
“Please.”
Something in his voice made me obey.
Denise sat beside me, her fingers twisting together in her lap. Marcus remained standing. Robert paced near the fireplace, occasionally glancing at the front door as if he were calculating how quickly he could leave.
My mother took a shaky breath.
“Two weeks before you were born, I went to see a doctor because I was experiencing unusual complications. During that appointment, the doctor asked me a question that I wasn’t prepared to answer.”
“What question?”
“Whether there was any possibility that I had been pregnant before the date I had given him.”
I frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
