Chapter 14 - RICHARD AND THOMAS
Thomas Avery was not a stranger to Richard Carter.
That was the next correction.
Old corporate records showed Thomas had worked for Carter Development as a field engineer.
Not in headquarters.
Construction sites.
Different division.
Elaine met him at a company holiday party.
They dated for about two months.
Then stopped.
Several weeks later, Richard began the affair with Elaine.
At least according to Elaine's memory.
She had not realized Richard and Thomas knew each other personally.
They did.
An old photograph showed them fishing together.
A company retreat.
Another showed Thomas standing beside Richard at a project groundbreaking.
Daniel stared.
“Why did you tell me they barely knew each other?”
Elaine looked shaken.
“Because that's what Richard told me.”
There.
Another old lie.
The second safe-deposit box required estate authorization to open.
Margaret could not block it.
She also did not try.
That surprised Daniel.
Then she asked through counsel to be present by video during inventory.
Daniel allowed it.
The box contained very little.
Two land deeds.
A dissolved partnership agreement.
A photograph of Richard and Thomas.
One envelope of medical records.
And a cassette tape.
No paternity report.
No confession.
The partnership explained why they shared the box.
Richard and Thomas had quietly owned a small parcel together before Carter Development bought it.
Potential conflict.
They stored the deed separately.
Nothing to do with Daniel.
Maybe.
Then the medical envelope.
Thomas Avery's blood type.
O positive.
Richard:
A positive.
Daniel:
O positive.
That proved almost nothing.
Modern genetics could not be replaced by blood-type guessing.
Margaret had learned that the hard way.
Then the cassette.
Richard's voice.
Recorded for his lawyer after Thomas died.
Daniel listened with Elaine and counsel.
Richard sounded tired.
Thomas knew about Elaine before I did. He told me she'd missed a period.
Elaine covered her mouth.
She had never told Thomas that.
Richard continued.
He asked if the baby was his. She said she didn't know yet. Then she told me she believed it was mine. I chose to believe her.
Daniel stared.
Elaine whispered:
“I don't remember that conversation.”
Richard's voice:
Thomas offered to test. I told him no.
Why?
Because if Daniel was mine, I was responsible. If he wasn't, I was still responsible for what I'd done to everyone around him.
Daniel stopped the tape.
He could not listen for a minute.
Then continued.
Richard said Thomas moved west.
No test.
No claim.
No later contact about Daniel that Richard admitted.
The question remained unresolved because Richard chose not to answer it.
Not because technology made it impossible.
Because he preferred fatherhood over certainty.
Daniel hated the secrecy.
He also understood this choice better than some of Richard's others.
Then the final sentence on the tape:
Margaret thinks certainty will save us. It won't.
Margaret closed her eyes on the video screen.
Claire, listening later, understood why that sentence mattered.
Margaret had spent decades proving Richard right.
The more uncertain she felt—
the tighter she held.
Daniel.
Elaine's letters.
Sophie's DNA.
Sophie herself.
Then the archive officer interrupted.
One item had been stuck beneath the cassette case.
A small Polaroid.
Richard.
Thomas.
Elaine.
And infant Daniel.
Date handwritten:
Three months after Daniel's birth.
On the back:
Tom came to say goodbye. M doesn't know.
Margaret stared.
“I knew he left.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Did you know he saw me?”
“No.”
For once, nobody had evidence she was lying.
Then Elaine noticed something in the photograph.
Thomas was holding a white laboratory envelope.
Same old lab logo as Richard's inconclusive paternity test.
The front was facing away.
Nobody could read the name.
There had been another result.
Maybe.
Not in either safe-deposit box.
Not in the adoption file.
May you like
Not in Richard's estate.
Someone had taken it.
