Chapter 4 - The Test Nobody Ordered
I did not touch the DNA report.
“Who tested me?”
Daniel sat slowly.
“Nobody recently.”
“What does that mean?”
“The sample was taken twenty-one years ago.”
When I was seven.
Mother started crying.
Father looked furious rather than surprised.
That told me he already knew.
Daniel explained that I had been hospitalized after falling from a bicycle. Routine blood work revealed an inconsistency in my recorded family medical history.
Daniel had been handling an insurance matter for my parents.
Somehow, he saw the results.
He ordered a private test.
“You tested a seven-year-old without permission?”
“I had permission.”
“From whom?”
His eyes moved toward Mother.
My stomach tightened.
Mother whispered:
“From me.”
I opened the report.
The terminology blurred until I found the conclusion.
Richard Mercer was excluded as my biological father.
I expected the revelation to destroy me.
It didn’t.
Richard had never behaved like my father anyway.
I looked at Mother.
“Who?”
She refused to answer.
Camille suddenly understood before I did.
Her eyes moved toward the old photograph.
Daniel and Mother.
“No,” I said.
Daniel looked down.
Mother covered her mouth.
I stood so quickly the chair fell.
“You?”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“Yes.”
The terrace disappeared around me.
My family attorney.
My mother’s lover.
My biological father.
The man who helped send me away.
“You knew for twenty-one years?”
“Yes.”
“And did nothing?”
“I did something.”
“What?”
“I convinced Margaret to take you.”
Mother snapped:
“Don’t rewrite history.”
Daniel turned on her.
“You wanted Naomi placed at Blue Harbor.”
My blood went cold.
“What was Blue Harbor?”
Nobody answered.
Rebecca did.
“A residential behavioral facility.”
I stared at Mother.
She had not merely wanted me gone.
She had planned to institutionalize me.
At seven.
“Why?”
Mother sobbed.
“Because Richard had found out.”
Father finally spoke.
“You weren’t supposed to exist.”
The sentence landed quietly.
Camille stared at him in horror.
Mother screamed his name.
But he continued.
“Eleanor wanted the marriage. Daniel wanted his career. Margaret wanted the family protected. Everyone made compromises.”
“And me?”
His expression remained empty.
“You were the complication.”
I looked at Daniel.
“Why Maine?”
“Because Margaret refused Blue Harbor.”
Grandma had saved me.
Again.
Rebecca slid another page toward me.
Blue Harbor had still been paid every year.
But I never lived there.
So where had the money gone?
Daniel stared at the ledger.
Then his face changed.
“These aren’t treatment payments.”
“What are they?”
He pulled the page closer.
“Silence payments.”
Mother went completely still.
“To whom?” I asked.
Daniel pointed at the account number.
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca opened her evidence case.
“Margaret did.”
She removed an envelope marked with one name.
Camille.
My sister backed away.
“Why does Grandma have a file about me?”
May you like
Rebecca answered quietly.
“Because Naomi wasn’t the only child whose identity was changed.”
