The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain
Page 37
The results of the DNA test arrived on Monday. Kara found them in the mail after work, when she brought the boy home from school. She considered looking at them right away, but thought it more fitting to lay the envelope aside, unopened. The boy was, after all, Craig's relative, not hers, genetically speaking. It was only right that he see the results first.
The boy had finished his homework without being asked and was playing with Paws out back when Craig came home from work. She heard her husband pull into the garage and met him at the door, envelope in hand.
"The tests results?" he asked, receiving them from her.
"I thought you should be the one to open them."
"Where's Zach?"
She pointed to the picture window. "Outside." They could see him wrestling with Paws in the grass. The two had become best friends over the past eleven days.
"All right," he said. He took the envelope into the bedroom.
"Aren't you going to let Zach see them, too?" she asked, following him. "We told him we would be a team, the three of us."
He shook his head. "He's not going to like what it says. I'd rather he hear it from us first, not from a letter." He proceeded to open the envelope and lift out the paper tucked within it. His eyes wound their way down the page until they landed in the middle. They suddenly grew very wide.
"What?" Kara inquired, instantly concerned.
Craig didn't look up from the paper. "This is impossible, Kara," he said, his voice suddenly tense. "They messed it up. They got it confused with someone else's test. It's wrong!"
He handed her the paper. A boldfaced number in the center of the page caught her eye: 99.8 percent certainty that Zach was Craig's…son!
"They were supposed to check for cousins, not paternity!" Kara chided the paper. "He's Elliott's! How…?" But the fact was, he looked more like Craig than like Elliott, he scratched his nose like Craig, he enjoyed the things Craig enjoyed, oatmeal notwithstanding… Her mind became a blur, sweeping through the possibilities and impossibilities.
"I'm going to call them," Craig said sternly. He sounded angry. Why?
He pulled his phone from his pocket. Kara caught him with a hand placed flat on his chest. "Craig," she said, a little too calmly, "you are…my husband…and I love you no matter what you say next. We've had a lot of great years together since…since they told us we couldn't have a child—I couldn't have a child. I just need to know… Are you absolutely certain—are you sure—Zach is not yours?"
The thought terrified her. She had always adored Craig, ever since they had first met in college. She was convinced he loved her, too… But might there have been a time, ten or eleven years ago, when they were under strain financially, emotionally…? She remembered moments of concern for their relationship, but she had never doubted him. This new evidence, though—it was already beginning to haunt her.
Craig caught her tone and froze, for a moment not even breathing. He sat down on the bed and looked up to meet her eyes, but then stood angrily again. His voice was gravelly. "No, Kara! He's not mine, and he's not ours!" He pointed to the paper. "They got it wrong!" His eyes were aflame, and afraid, too—but afraid of losing her or of being found out?
When she said nothing, he sat heavily on the bed once more and moaned, "They got it wrong. This is not my fault."
She held his eyes, still silent.
"You have to believe me… What do you want me to do?"
What did she want? She wanted the boy to never have appeared, so that she could keep hold of the absolute trust she'd had in this man ten minutes ago, trust that was now slipping away. She wanted to keep the boy and to have these test results say he was a cousin-once-removed or something like that. She wanted to keep the boy and believe her husband. But it made too much sense—a secret son, hidden away, only something had happened, something Craig had not expected, and those caring for the boy had sent him to them, to his true father…
Kara stepped to the wall and stared at it without seeing it. "Just don't do anything, Craig," she managed to say, "not yet." She turned and thrust the paper back to him less gently than she had intended. "And don't…don't leave this out where Zach might see it, okay?" She sniffled. Craig, still fuming at the paper but now furrowing anxious brows at her, reached out to take her in his arms, but she held up one hand. "Not right now," she said. "Right now, I—I need to think through this."
He withdrew his hands. She recognized pain in the motion. She didn't know how to take that pain away; she didn't know if she wanted to. If Zach was his, he deserved it, and more. The paper said he was the boy's father. 99.8 percent certainty. This paper could serve as evidence in court. People who performed DNA tests couldn't afford to make mistakes. She turned and walked away from her husband, back to the kitchen.
Dinner was nearly finished. She completed it in a haze. Without a doubt, this had been the most bewildering two weeks of her life: the night of the boy's arrival, the next morning at the school, last week when they had read the boy's birth certificate, and now this. She burned the biscuits—from distraction, not from anger. Certainly not from anger.
Her anger was cold, buried. At first, she had directed it toward whoever had sent the boy away, whoever had kept him indoors for so much of his life. Now, she didn't know who to be angry at. She wasn't even sure she wanted to know—not if it was Craig. She didn't want to be angry at Craig. He was a good husband…or she had thought he was.
All the same, when he finally emerged from the bedroom, she had a hard time not glaring at him in fury. This isn't his fault, she told herself. It was a mistake. She wanted to believe that. But another voice within her whispered, The boy looks just like him. Which was more likely, after all—that the clinic had committed an egregious crime, giving away her and Craig's embryo when they didn't even have a viable embryo, or that her husband, in a moment of weakness, had had an affair?
The boy had known where the towels were, where the glasses were, had greeted Paws like an old friend, had greeted Craig like he was welcoming his own father home… Was it possible—she tried to push the thought away, but it wouldn't go—was it possible that Craig had known all along, that he had secretly brought the boy to their home when she was away at work or off in Spokane, visiting her mother? That would explain a lot…
She finished dinner and stepped outside to call the boy in to wash his hands. He zipped inside, sweaty and breathing hard from running with Paws, as she refilled the dog's food and water. Paws, at least, was innocent. She wasn't angry with him. He wagged his tail appreciatively as he lapped up his drink, oblivious to her distress.
The meal was quiet and awkward. The boy tried to make conversation for a while, but Craig and Kara responded only in short, subdued phrases, and after a while he gave up. He finished his last biscuit and excused himself to go read a book.
Craig gulped down the rest of his food and risked a look at Kara. "I'm going to have another company test me and Zach," he said in a low voice. "We need a second opinion."
Kara didn't return his gaze.
"We'll do it tomorrow, just a paternity test. That's a lot cheaper than—"
"Will it change anything?" she shouted at him in a whisper. "Will it, Craig? Because if he's yours, no test is going to prove otherwise!" She braved a look at him. She had never seen his eyes so round, so sad…or were they terrified?
She leaned forward over her food and stared him down. "Who was she, Craig?" she demanded. "Did she have blue eyes? Because nobody on either side of our family that I can think of has blue eyes! Where did he get those, huh? And those extra grandparents he talks about? It just makes a little too much sense, don't you think?"
Craig didn't take her bait. She wanted him to yell back at her, fight passionately for his innocence, defend himself so she could explode at him in a rage. But he didn't. He simply stared back at her, his eyes wide and sad. Was he trying to hide something or not? His reaction befuddled her.
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Why would he want a second test if he knew he was the father? she wondered. It wouldn't change anything. The haze in her mind cleared a little.
She blinked that haze back—not away, but back to a corner of her mind. "I'm sorry," she told Craig. "I want to believe you. But that stupid letter…"
"I know." His hand flinched like he was going to reach for her, but he settled it into his lap instead. She wished he had reached for her.
Kara looked at her food. She didn't want it anymore. "Do the test," she told Craig. "Hopefully, they'll get it right this time. In the meantime"—she stood and took her dishes to the sink—"I'm taking Paws for a walk."
The boy heard that last bit from the den and poked his head around the corner. "Can I come?"
"No!" she barked. Her tone caught him by surprise, and he ducked swiftly back into the den. She fetched Paws' leash, fetched Paws, and strode out the front door without looking back.
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