Chapter 7 - Patricia’s First Husband
His name was Raymond Cole.
Patricia married him at nineteen.
Annulled the marriage at twenty.
Never told her children.
Why?
Raymond was controlling.
Jealous.
Obsessed with having a family.
After Patricia left, he stalked her for years.
Then disappeared from her life.
Henry knew.
He helped Patricia obtain legal protection.
Years later, Raymond became wealthy.
Founder of a fertility logistics company.
Meridian Reproductive Center’s parent company.
Daniel felt cold.
“You’re saying your ex-husband had access to Claire’s embryos?”
Patricia nodded.
Claire looked ill.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
But Henry had investigated.
J-4’s paternal DNA was not Jacob.
Not Henry.
Not Raymond.
Then why mention Raymond?
Because Raymond had arranged the laboratory handling.
He paid a technician.
He substituted donor material.
Whose?
Unknown in Henry’s earlier letters.
Then 2023 answered partially.
The sperm source belonged to a close relative of Claire.
Male.
That sounded impossible.
Claire had one brother, Michael.
DNA would show.
Michael went pale.
“No.”
Testing later excluded Michael.
So who?
An unknown paternal relative.
Then another twist.
Henry was not Claire and Michael’s biological father?
Patricia erupted.
“Yes, he was.”
For Michael.
Not Claire.
Silence.
Claire stared at her mother.
“What?”
Patricia finally broke.
After leaving Raymond, she briefly reconciled with him once.
Months later, she met Henry.
She became pregnant.
Dates overlapped.
She believed Raymond was Claire’s biological father.
Henry knew.
He married her anyway.
Never treated Claire differently.
Later DNA—done secretly by Henry—showed Raymond was not Claire’s father either.
Then who was?
Patricia did not know.
One drunken night.
A man she barely remembered.
Shame had kept the secret alive.
Claire stood and walked away.
Daniel let her.
Too much truth can become noise if forced continuously.
Then he returned to Henry’s letters.
If Claire’s biological father was unknown, J-4 might have been created using sperm from someone genetically related to that unknown man.
Why?
Raymond was searching.
For what?
Patricia whispered:
“He believed Claire was his.”
Even after DNA proved otherwise?
He never saw Henry’s test.
Raymond apparently spent decades believing Patricia had stolen his daughter.
When Claire entered fertility treatment, he found out.
He interfered.
Maybe he intended to create an embryo that would prove something.
But with whose sperm?
Then Michael discovered Raymond Cole had a son from a later marriage.
Andrew Cole.
Thirty-seven.
Half-brother to someone, maybe not Claire.
Raymond might have used Andrew as donor.
Why?
To make Claire’s child genetically connected to Raymond’s family despite Claire herself not being Raymond’s daughter.
Disturbing.
But possible.
Then Henry’s final note on J-4:
Raymond did not create it to produce a child.
He created it to test Claire.
Test what?
A genetic relationship.
If J-4 developed normally under certain screening results, Raymond believed it would prove Claire carried a rare recessive variant found in his family.
But Claire didn’t.
Meaning the experiment failed.
So why keep the embryo?
Because someone else saw value in it.
Then Patricia whispered:
“Anna.”
Everyone turned.
Jacob’s sister.
May you like
The woman whose baby had vanished from records.
“Anna worked for Meridian.”
