Chapter 2 - The Question Ethan Asked in the Car
Cole finally moved when Ethan started sobbing so hard he could barely speak.
He crossed the room and crouched in front of his son.
“Buddy.”
Ethan pressed himself tighter against Lena.
Cole stopped.
The rejection was small.
It devastated him.
Lena saw it.
She did not rescue him from it.
Meredith was shouting now.
Arthur had misread the report.
The laboratory was incompetent.
Lena had manipulated something.
Everyone was overreacting.
Her explanations changed every thirty seconds.
Arthur folded the papers and placed them inside the envelope.
“I have not misread it.”
“You're retired.”
“I can still read a relationship probability table.”
Cole stood.
“Mom, leave.”
Meredith stared at him.
“This is my house.”
The birthday had been held at the Mercer family home in Arlington, where Cole had grown up.
That fact had always given Meredith more power than Lena liked.
Cole looked around the dining room.
The childhood photographs.
His father's military academy plaque.
The mahogany cabinet containing David's old watches.
The silver-framed picture of Cole sitting on David's shoulders at age six.
“Then we're leaving.”
That frightened Meredith more.
Cole picked up Ethan's coat.
Lena took the report from Arthur.
Meredith reached toward it.
“No.”
Lena's voice stopped her.
“You don't touch anything belonging to my family again.”
Meredith looked at Ethan.
“I was trying to protect Cole.”
Ethan heard her.
Lena saw it happen.
The child's little face tightened.
He looked at his father.
“From me?”
Cole closed his eyes.
“No.”
He walked directly to Ethan this time but did not touch him.
“Never from you.”
They left.
Arthur followed.
In the car, Ethan sat buckled into his booster seat with tears drying on his cheeks.
Nobody spoke for nearly five minutes.
Then he asked the question Lena knew would stay with her for years.
“Daddy, if Grandma says I'm not yours, do I still get to call you Daddy?”
Cole pulled the SUV to the shoulder.
He put it in park.
Then turned around.
“Ethan, listen to me.”
His voice broke.
“I am your dad.”
“But Grandma said blood.”
“I don't care what Grandma said.”
“Is she right?”
Cole looked at Lena.
Lena had not cheated.
There had never been another possibility.
She wanted to say it immediately.
But Arthur spoke first from the passenger seat.
“That paper is not enough for us to make any final conclusions about anybody.”
Meredith's test had been performed by a private relationship laboratory using samples submitted without formal chain-of-custody documentation.
Arthur explained that the report might contain meaningful information, but they needed to know whose samples had actually been submitted and how.
Cole gripped the steering wheel.
“Does it say Ethan isn't mine?”
Arthur looked back at Lena first.
Then Cole.
“No.”
Cole stared.
“What?”
Arthur opened the envelope again.
“The report actually shows a very strong biological relationship between you and Ethan.”
Lena felt anger move through her body with frightening calm.
“So Meredith lied.”
“Yes.”
Cole swallowed.
Arthur continued.
“The unexpected result is between you and David.”
Cole's hand dropped from the steering wheel.
Meredith had arrived at her grandson's birthday carrying a report that supported Cole being Ethan's biological father.
She had known that.
And she had still used it to tell a five-year-old he was unwanted.
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That meant the cruelty had not come from a mistaken test.
It had come from something Meredith needed the test to hide.
