Chapter 2 - Diane Had Tried to Stop Ethan’s Result From Appearing
Dad shut the television off.
Not because he wanted the truth hidden, but because Lily was crying.
That mattered.
This was her birthday, not a family tribunal.
I took her inside, dried her hair, changed her into another dress, and told her something I should not have needed to tell an eight-year-old.
“You belong in this family because you’re you. A screen doesn’t decide that.”
She looked at me and asked, “But Grandpa really is my grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did Diane say he wasn’t?”
That question was harder.
“Because Diane wanted to hurt us.”
I did not tell Lily why yet. I didn’t know.
When I returned to the patio, Dad had opened the genealogy account on his laptop. The access history showed Diane had logged in at 11:14 that morning.
The party started at one.
The laboratory had flagged Ethan’s result because the family relationships entered in the account did not match the DNA data.
At 11:26, someone using Diane’s device sent customer support a message.
Please remove Ethan Bennett’s sample from the family display. Consent status may be incorrect.
The company declined because Ethan was thirty-one and had submitted his own sample directly.
At 11:41, Diane tried a different approach.
The family tree is incorrect. Robert Bennett is Ethan’s father. Please delay publication pending correction.
The company responded that biological relationships could not be edited to override genetic results.
Then at 12:07, Diane logged into the smart-TV family slideshow and removed Ethan’s profile manually.
That should have hidden the result from the birthday display.
It didn’t.
The genealogy app refreshed automatically when the verified report was released.
That was why the screen changed.
Dad looked at Diane.
“You knew.”
She folded her arms.
“I knew there was a problem with the test.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Robert, these companies make mistakes.”
“Then why try to remove Ethan before anyone saw it?”
“Because I didn’t want a technical error ruining Lily’s birthday.”
I almost laughed.
“You threw water in Lily’s face and told her she wasn’t Grandpa’s blood.”
Diane looked at me.
“You don’t know what this family has been through because of your mother.”
There it was.
Julia again.
My mother had been dead for nineteen years, yet Diane still brought her into arguments whenever she needed to question my place in Dad’s life.
Dad said, “Leave Julia out of this.”
Diane turned toward him.
“You spent years wondering whether Claire was yours.”
My father’s expression changed.
I stared at him.
“What?”
He looked ashamed.
Not because he believed it now.
Because the sentence was true.
Diane had planted the doubt years earlier.
I asked, “What exactly did she tell you?”
Dad said nothing for several seconds.
Then, “After your mother died, Diane told me Julia had admitted she’d been involved with someone before you were born.”
My chest went cold.
“Did Mom tell you that?”
“No.”
“Did you ever see proof?”
Dad hesitated.
“Diane showed me a letter.”
Of course.
“Where is it?”
He looked toward his study.
The letter had been stored with old family papers for almost two decades.
Dad brought it out.
It was supposedly written by my mother shortly before she died.
One sentence had defined years of unspoken distance between my father and me:
There are things about Claire’s conception I should have told you long ago.
I read it twice.
Then noticed something Dad had never noticed.
My mother always signed personal letters Julie, never Julia.
This one ended:
Love, Julia.
And when we compared it to the DNA-company login times, Diane’s panic suddenly made sense in a different way.
For years she had taught Dad to question whether I was really his child.
Now DNA had proved I was.
May you like
And the only child whose paternity was actually false was hers.
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