Chapter 10 - WHAT THE DNA TEST WAS REALLY FOR
Mom asked for a break.
No one moved.
Peter told her gently that she could have one.
She shook her head.
“Finish.”
The bank had reconstructed the sequence.
Mom initiated both requests.
Naomi created the false acknowledgments afterward.
The money ultimately went to Naomi’s business.
That part we knew.
What we hadn’t known was why Mom had started the process.
Naomi looked at her.
“You told me Peter recommended it.”
Mom said nothing.
“You said the trust could lend against my eventual share.”
Still nothing.
The bank attorney explained that no such recommendation existed.
Naomi’s voice rose.
“You told me Grace wasn’t legally entitled to anything if Richard wasn't her father.”
I felt the pieces connect.
My birthday.
Mom’s pale face.
Her repeated questions about whether I had taken the DNA test.
Naomi’s strange confidence that biology would affect the trust.
Mom telling Naomi that Dad never knew.
Three details that had seemed like shame now pointed somewhere else.
Mom had encouraged Naomi to believe the test could remove me as an obstacle.
“Why?” I asked.
My mother looked seventy instead of sixty-four.
“The house.”
I didn’t understand.
“What about it?”
Dad’s trust allowed Mom to live in the Myers Park property for life, provided she maintained insurance, taxes, and ordinary expenses.
But the house carried costs she could no longer comfortably afford.
After Dad died, Mom had refused to reduce her lifestyle.
She kept the house staff.
The club membership.
The charity tables.
The annual family Christmas party that cost more than my first car.
Dad’s personal pension and trust income covered much of it.
Not all.
She had accumulated almost $190,000 in personal debt.
Then Naomi’s company began failing.
Mom saw one solution for both problems.
Save Naomi’s business.
Let Naomi repay the trust later.
Use Naomi’s future distributions if necessary.
But Grace was a complication.
I was entitled to information.
I could object.
So Mom did something quieter than stealing from me directly.
She encouraged Naomi’s resentment.
“She already thought Richard favored you emotionally,” Mom admitted.
Naomi stared at her.
“You told me Grace might not be a beneficiary.”
“I thought if she knew about Daniel—”
“You thought I would push her out.”
Mom lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
Naomi stood abruptly.
“You gave me the adoption file.”
Mom flinched.
“You left it where you knew I would find it.”
No answer.
“You told me Dad didn't know.”
“I was desperate.”
“You let me humiliate her.”
“I didn't tell you to do that.”
“You didn't stop me.”
The sentence was almost identical to what I had told Mom months earlier.
Naomi slowly sat again.
I had wanted a villain.
One person I could blame cleanly.
Instead I saw something worse and more ordinary.
My mother had manipulated Naomi’s oldest wound—her belief that Dad valued me more—to protect a lifestyle she was ashamed to admit she couldn’t afford.
Naomi had then made her own choices.
She forged my acknowledgment.
She took money she knew required my consent.
She used my parentage as a weapon because she wanted to believe the story Mom gave her.
Neither woman was innocent.
Neither was simply evil.
Peter slid another paper forward.
“There’s one immediate decision.”
First Piedmont intended to petition for Evelyn’s removal as family trustee unless all beneficiaries agreed to a voluntary transition to an independent trustee.
Mom looked at me.
May you like
Naomi looked at me.
For once, the decision neither of them wanted belonged entirely to the daughter they had spent months trying to convince didn’t belong at all.
