Chapter 6 - What Mark Finally Admitted
Mark admitted the truth in the kitchen.
Not all of it.
Not cleanly.
But enough.
After Reed insisted the document be preserved and the relatives began leaving in embarrassed clusters, Mark followed me into the kitchen while Diane hovered near the living-room arch like a storm cloud in expensive jewelry.
Lily had finally fallen back against my shoulder, exhausted from the noise. I kept my voice low for her sake, not his.
“Whose sample was it?”
Mark rubbed both hands over his face.
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I sent one of Mom’s old baby swabs.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“She had ordered some ancestry thing years ago. She said if the lab saw the wrong result, we’d finally know what you were hiding.”
I almost could not understand the stupidity of it.
Or maybe I could.
Diane had wanted betrayal so badly that she had turned fraud into proof. Mark had wanted to be righteous so badly that he had helped her.
“You used a random old sample and called it my daughter’s DNA?”
“I thought—”
“No. You didn’t think. You obeyed.”
His face tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
I shifted Lily higher and looked at the man I had married.
“Fair was asking me if you had doubts before calling every relative you knew. Fair was protecting your child from public humiliation. Fair was not letting your mother point at the door like she owned the roof over my baby’s head.”
His eyes filled.
Whether from shame or fear, I did not care.
Diane stepped into the kitchen.
“Mark, stop explaining yourself to her.”
For the first time, he did not look at his mother immediately.
That hesitation was tiny.
But Diane saw it.
So did I.
Reed entered behind her.
“Mrs. Mercer, your attorney returned my call. She recommends you and Lily remain here tonight only if Mr. Mercer and Mrs. Diane Mercer leave voluntarily. Otherwise, she advises alternate safe lodging while she files tomorrow morning.”
Diane scoffed.
“Files what?”
I looked at Mark.
“Protective custody terms. A motion regarding the house. And documentation of tonight’s fraud.”
Diane’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
Mark whispered my name.
May you like
I shook my head.
“No. You don’t get to make me defend my motherhood in a room you rigged.”
