Chapter 5 - The Second Test
The independent test took place in a quiet medical office.
A technician checked our identification, photographed Brandon and Luke, and collected cheek swabs under controlled conditions.
Luke sat on Brandon’s lap.
“Will it hurt?”
“Not at all,” the technician said. “It’s like brushing the inside of your cheek.”
Luke opened his mouth bravely.
Afterward, he received a sticker shaped like a star.
“What is the test for?” he asked.
Brandon looked at me before answering.
“It helps prove something Daddy already knows.”
“What?”
“That you belong with us.”
Luke seemed satisfied.
The results would take several business days.
During that time, Madeline launched a quiet campaign to defend herself.
She called relatives individually and claimed I had always been secretive about my past. She suggested that my anger was proof of guilt. She told Victoria that Brandon had suspected me for years, which was completely false.
She also contacted the trustee overseeing Richard’s family education fund.
Richard had created the fund for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Madeline served as one of three administrators.
She requested that Luke’s eligibility be suspended until his “biological status” was resolved.
That decision changed everything.
Madeline’s actions were no longer only cruel.
She had used an altered document in an official financial matter.
Brandon called the family attorney, Samuel Price, who had worked with Richard for more than twenty years.
Samuel asked us to bring every page of the report.
He examined it in silence.
“This first page was added,” he said.
“We know.”
“The original report number may allow us to identify the purpose of the test through legal channels.”
“Can Madeline remove Luke from the trust?” I asked.
“Not alone. And the trust language does not give her the authority she appears to believe it does.”
“What does that mean?”
Samuel adjusted his glasses.
“It means Madeline has spent many years telling the family that Richard’s trust was restricted to biological descendants. That is not precisely what the document says.”
Brandon leaned forward.
“What does it say?”
“It names you, Victoria, and your descendants. The word biological appears in an earlier draft, but Richard removed it before signing.”
“Why?”
Samuel hesitated.
“That is something we may need to discuss after we understand the laboratory report.”
I recognized the same careful tone Brandon had used before the party.
“No more hidden information,” I said. “Not after what happened.”
Samuel looked at Brandon.
“Your father left a sealed letter with instructions that it be given to you if questions about parentage ever threatened your place in the family.”
The room became completely still.
“My parentage?” Brandon asked.
Samuel opened a locked cabinet.
Inside was a blue envelope with Richard’s handwriting across the front.
For Brandon, when the truth becomes necessary.
Brandon reached for it, then stopped.
“What did my mother test?”
Samuel’s expression was filled with sorrow.
“I believe Madeline compared Luke’s DNA to a preserved sample belonging to Richard.”
My husband stared at him.
“If Luke wasn’t related to Dad…”
Samuel nodded slowly.
May you like
“It may not have been Luke whose parentage the test called into question.”
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