Chapter 3 - The Test Roderick Agreed To
Roderick told me the truth that night.
Not all of it.
He did not have all of it.
But enough.
Three weeks before the birthday, Eugenia called him.
She said:
“I need you to do something for the trust.”
“What?”
“A DNA swab.”
Why?
She claimed Howard’s estate lawyers were reviewing lineage provisions connected to Niles turning five.
That was partly plausible.
The Wexler family had complicated trusts.
Roderick hated them.
I understood almost none.
Alden handled most.
Roderick asked:
“Why now?”
Eugenia said:
“Because the transfer triggers at five.”
That was true.
Then she added:
“Howard’s documents require biological confirmation.”
That was false.
Roderick did not know.
Instead of calling Alden, he agreed.
That was his first failure.
A technician came to Eugenia’s home.
Collected a cheek swab from Roderick.
Properly.
Then:
Niles.
I stared at my husband.
“How?”
Roderick looked sick.
“Mom had his toothbrush.”
My stomach turned.
“She took our son’s toothbrush?”
“From the lake house.”
We had stayed there over Memorial Day.
“Did you know?”
“Not until after.”
“Then why didn’t you stop it?”
“I asked her what she was doing. She said the lab could use a discarded toothbrush for an informational comparison.”
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
His answer took too long.
“Because I knew you’d be angry.”
There.
Not ignorance.
Avoidance.
He continued:
“I thought the result would be obvious. I’m his father. I thought it would end whatever obsession she had.”
“You let your mother test our child secretly to calm your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Not to help Niles.”
“No.”
That mattered.
“Did you question my fidelity?”
“No.”
I believed him.
His shame looked different.
“Then why agree?”
“Because Mom kept saying there was a problem in Dad’s trust file. I wanted it finished.”
Convenience.
Again.
The test packet contained two analyses.
Page one:
A paternal-lineage comparison involving old genetic data Howard Wexler had generated years earlier through a private ancestry and medical genealogy service.
The laboratory found the paternal lineage represented in Howard’s data was inconsistent with Niles’s.
Eugenia read that as:
Niles is not a Wexler.
Page two:
Direct Roderick-Niles paternity analysis.
Probability of paternity greater than 99.99 percent.
Niles was Roderick’s biological son.
So if Niles did not genetically descend from Howard—
The unexplained person in the chain was not Niles.
It was Roderick.
My husband stared at the floor.
“I think my father wasn’t my biological father.”
There.
The real DNA shock.
Not my child.
May you like
My husband.
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