by Kris Jayne
“Not until after their quickie wedding right after Valentine’s Day. They said they were expecting ‘a happy addition in August.’ I refused to answer their calls and messages, so my dad ended up leaving a voicemail. A happy addition.” He opened his eyes and stroked my hand. “Then, they said Grace was born a few weeks early. They were in the hospital. My father said she was premature. I might have questioned Marisa, but I had no reason to think Dad would lie. He still doesn’t know about us.”
I rubbed his back and tried to absorb his side of the story. “How are you going to fix this?”
“Fix it?” he sat up and gave me a quizzical look.
“Resolve it. Now that you know, you have to do something,” I said.
“There’s no fixing this. It’s all a mess,” he sighed. “But if Grace isn’t mine, then there’s nothing to do. I’m not going to say anything. If she is, then I have no idea.”
He’d have to tell his father and Grace. That was a catastrophe. I thought I had a grasp of Marisa’s manipulations, but she was even better at sleight of hand than anyone could imagine. Even if Grace weren’t his, how was he going to rebuild a relationship with his father with this secret between them? Now, I understood even more why Griffin stayed away.
“How are you going to find out the truth?”
“I looked this up before I drove home. It’s amazing how quickly you can turn up information about doing paternity testing. There’s a whole industry of labs and testing to sort out our literal fucking mistakes,” he snorted. “Having the possible fathers be father and son makes DNA testing more complicated. I’ll need a sample from Grace and from Marisa if I’m not going to have my dad submit a sample. That’s the only way to do it without telling him right away, but I have to find the right leverage on the lying wench. I doubt she’ll do it voluntarily.”
The bitter words made his lips pucker unattractively.
After teasing through all the questions, I landed on what he needed to do. “Give her an ultimatum. Tell her that she either gives a sample and allows Grace to be tested, or you go to your father and tell him the truth, so he can get tested. You can count on her strong sense of self-preservation. The only way out of this for her is for the test to come back saying Grace is your sister, and then she never has to say anything to Gregory. She’ll cling to that possibility like grim death.”
“Or try to make sure that’s what the results say. I’ll have to find a lab to do the testing securely—and discretely. I can’t stroll into a lab with Marisa and Grace in tow and count on not running into anyone. People know us. But I don’t trust her to go by herself. I want to be there when the samples are taken,” he said.
The churning of ideas put a faraway look in his eyes. I drew my thumbs around his shoulder blades to bring his focus back into the room.
“You could do a mail-order test. The results might not be admissible in court, but you can get confirmation for legal purposes later. This is about finding out the truth,” I reasoned.
He nodded.
“And if it comes back that you’re a father, what then?”
“I can’t think about that, Delilah.”
“But—”
“No, I’m not going to think that far ahead,” he interrupted and shook his head to reinforce his stance. “I know you want to start building a decision chart of what I could do, should do, and all the contingencies, but I can’t handle that right now. I don’t want to think about it until I have to. Until then, it’s wasted energy.”
I wanted to argue. Preparation is never wasted energy, but his emotional explosiveness was palpable. Today had thrown at him all the information he could metabolize, so I listened.
“You know, I never thought I wanted kids. It’s ironic. Spending time with Grace made me think that I could be a father. I still have that voice in my head that says I’m too irresponsible. It’s crazy, right? I think nothing of getting together millions of dollars for a business venture or running a billion-dollar company, but the idea of a tiny person looking at me with expectation in their eyes used to scare me to death.”
“It doesn’t now.”
My words came out as a realization and not a question.
“I’m good with Grace, right?” He gazed at me for confirmation.
I nodded with a lump forming in my throat. “You are. You’d make an amazing dad.”
He grinned at me despite the tired strain tugging at his eyes. “Thanks.”
I smiled back and kissed his cheek, running my hands up and down his wide back and trying not to fixate on my selfish thoughts. I could help him sort out a thousand messes. I could open up my body and my heart to him. But if he wanted a child, I couldn’t give him that. Then, where would we be?
Chapter 25
Griffin
I had to wait three days to confront Marisa.
The mail-in testing kit arrived in two, but I couldn’t find time alone with her until the next day. Dad had all-day meetings at a client’s office, and the nanny was taking Grace and Gregory Jr. to the Marbles Kids Museum downtown. I skipped lunch and drove to the house with everything I needed.
I found Marisa dancing and kickboxing in the workout studio they’d built by the pool. She punched and sprawled down to a mat covering the polished wood floors and then jumped up again. Images of her lithe body bounced back and forth in the mirrors flanking the room, and my fury surged. Here I was, trapped in her fragmented reality while she flounced and jiggled. Finally noticing that she had a visitor, the witch clicked off her video and whirled around.
“Griffin.” Surprise made her voice squeak, and she glanced down at my feet, regaining her composure. “Don’t walk on the floors in those hard shoes. You’ll ruin the finish.”
I ignored her and walked a few more steps into the room. The hard slap of my dress shoes echoed. I tucked my hands behind me and resolved to keep several feet between us. Marisa and her games didn’t matter now. I didn’t need to punish her. I needed to get the truth.
“Grab some water. We need to talk.”
Her laughter trilled, cold and hollow. “That sounds ominous.”
“Good. Because this is fucking serious.”
She scooped up her water bottle. “Don’t cuss at me.”
“I’m sorry. Am I offending your delicate sensibilities? Or,” I sneered, “your morals?”
Marisa wiped her face, and it lost its post-exercise flush. “If you’re going to accuse me of something, get to it.”
Her rigid posture and evasive gaze told me there were at least a dozen infractions winding in the guilt tornado in her head. She clutched her water bottle in one hand while the other shaky one unscrewed the cap. I paused, making her wait and wonder before I asked the necessary question in a tone so level you could use it calibrate a jet engine.
“Exactly how pregnant were you when you and my father walked down the aisle?”
Marisa froze with her water bottle tipped back. Then, she coughed, sputtering liquid down her chin and further dampening her dry-fit tank top. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I felt so guilty all these years staying away. I remember when dad called and said that you’d gone into labor early. Even after everything, I worried about you, and it was a lie, wasn’t it?”
“What was a lie? You’re not making sense, and I don’t have to listen to this.” She strode past me, heading for the door.
I stopped her with a bark. “You lied about your due date.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated with a hint of desperation, but she turned around. “Grace was born early. She was five weeks premature.” Marisa’s bottom lip protruded as if it might tremble, and her eyes rounded wide as if she might cry. Neither happened.
“Tell the truth,” I shouted.
She lifted her shoulders and squared to me—even as her voice wavered and softened. “I thought we were moving past all this and trying to be a family. Talking about what went on back then is only going to make that h
arder.”
I locked my knee to stop myself from taking a step toward her and thrust my finger at her instead. “It’s probably good that I’ve stayed away, isn’t it? It worked out for you—Dad and I barely speaking—but then you got spooked by Dad’s heart thing. You know that while you’ll get the house and a stipend, most of the money not tied up in the company or trusts for the kids goes to me. So you needed us to be one big happy family. You even hit on me.”
She emitted a throaty denial and rolled her eyes.
“Deny it all you want, it’s true, but that’s not the point. All this time, you made sure we stayed apart, so we had no opportunity to have the conversation I had with him a couple of days ago.”
“What did you tell him?” Her voice turned wary while her complexion shifted from merely pale to nearly gray.
“Nothing. It’s what he told me: that you both lied about Grace’s due date and about her coming early. That means you lied to me about when Grace was conceived. You got Dad to lie to me, and you got me to lie to Dad. With both of us lying and both of us in the dark at the same time, we kept your secret. You were pregnant as early as October.”
“Gregory is Grace’s father. Period.” She sliced her hands through the air in front of her, then puffed out her chest and added, “You don’t want to open that can of worms.”
Her attempt at looking menacing almost amused me. “Wrong. That’s exactly what I want to do.”
“You would blow up our lives because you’ve misconstrued something your father said about Grace’s due date and because you can’t get over the couple of times we had sex that whole year? That does not compare—”
She was dodging like she always did, and I wasn’t letting her get away with it anymore. “It was more than a couple of times, and I don’t know, maybe you weren’t with him as much as you’d like me to believe. He was traveling. You kept visiting New York.”
Her demeanor suddenly changed from wide-eyed and innocent to wild and defensive. “I slept with your father dozens and dozens of times. I was practically living with him. You and I only hooked up three or four times.”
“Two times or four or twenty, it doesn’t matter. You were with both of us during the time when you got pregnant, so there’s at least some chance that Grace is my…not my sister.” I stumbled over the word that I couldn’t quite say out loud while staring at this woman. The idea that she and I had a child together made me queasy.
Marisa wasn’t ready to surrender. “Gregory is Grace’s father. He has been and always will be. There’s no test that’s going to change that. How do you think she’s going to feel about you if you’re responsible for taking that away from her?”
I glared at Marisa and imagined the shock and confusion on Grace’s angelic face if she found out her biological father avoided getting to know her for years. “She might hate me or she might not. There’s always a chance the truth would come out some other way. At least she’ll know that as soon as I knew it was a possibility, I didn’t run. I’m going to make sure we get to the bottom of this.”
“Good luck with that,” Marisa snapped.
“By we, I mean you, me, and Dad.”
“Don’t be stupid. Why ruin your relationship with Gregory when you’re just now reconciling?”
“I have to know if Grace is mine,” I insisted.
“I’m telling you she isn’t.”
I snickered, enraged and with the same sick feeling in my gut. “Forgive me if I’m not going to take your word on that.”
“Griffin, you can’t do this.” Fear burned her voice to smoky whisper. For once, the pleading in her eyes seemed genuine, but I had no patience for her begging.
“This is going to go one of two ways. The first is the easiest one for you. I’m going to help Grace get ready for bed, and she’s going to brush her teeth with the fresh toothbrush I bought today. I’m getting a cheek swab from you. I’m going to submit those along with my swab, and we’re going to get an answer,” I paused and huffed.
“I’m not giving you shit. This is ridiculous, and you have no proof of anything to force me to do anything,” she said. She swung her towel in my direction, then crossed her arms.
“Look, I need a third sample to clarify things since you have no boundaries and Dad and I obviously share DNA. It can be yours, or—and this is the other way the shit can hit the fan—it can be his.”
“You’re not going to do this to your father,” she smirked.
“If Grace isn’t mine, I’m content to say jack shit to him. But if I have to tell him to find out the truth, I will. He’ll understand.”
“You’re going to ruin my life,” she gasped. At last, my resolve began to penetrate her denials.
“I don’t give a fuck about you,” I growled.
“But what about Grace? And Gregory Jr.? Their security, their future? They’re going to hate you for breaking up their parents’ marriage. The older they get, the more they’ll realize how spiteful you were.”
I doubted that, but they would be hurt. I had to force the thought from my mind for now and remind myself that I wasn’t the one doing this to them. Marisa’s blown-up marriage was her responsibility. I couldn’t walk away without knowing if Grace was my daughter, and I couldn’t look Dad in the eye knowing she was and say nothing. The lines I had to cross—and the ones I wouldn’t—were clear.
“The samples, Marisa. How about we do yours now?”
I pulled the kit from my bag and waved it.
“I can’t believe you’re going to do this,” she whispered.
“We should have done this before Grace was born,” I said, easing up my assault since she was starting to fold.
Tears pooled in Marisa’s eyes. “Where would that have left Grace? She would have been born under a cloud. I know you think I’m a selfish bitch, but I did this for her. So she could have the stable childhood I didn’t.”
God help me, but I believed that was part of it. I also knew that she was looking out for herself. “I could have provided a stable family. Whatever you thought of me then, finding out I was having a child would have changed things. It’s not like I didn’t have a job and the means to support her.”
“It’s not just the money. Once you walked into that kitchen and saw me, I knew you were going to hate me. You and I wouldn’t have gotten married. Your dad was already willing to be with me. He was ready to marry me and live like a real family.”
“If you hadn’t been with my father, I would have married you. You made your choice,” I sighed, no longer even angry about that. There were too many other considerations now.
“Do you wish that I’d chosen you?” Marisa moved toward me and stroked my forearm. My stomach convulsed.
“No!”
I flung her hand away from me so hard, she stumbled back a step.
“I’ve thanked God every day in the last six years that I didn’t marry you, and that was before this latest revelation. It kills me that my father is married to you and that he might never know the depths of how fucked up you are.”
“You can’t tell him anything if she’s his. That’s the deal, right?” She pressed the back of her hand to her forehead and exhaled.
I pulled the shrink wrap off the kit. “Haven’t you ever thought that one day she could do one of those online genetics tests and get some results that would need explaining? What if I had kids, and they showed up like siblings instead of as nieces or nephews or something?”
Marisa smirked. “What kids are you going to have? Especially now that you’re with a woman pushing menopause. How is Delilah? Do hot flashes turn you on?”
The detente I thought we were having dissolved, and I charged at her. “I don’t want to hear her name in your lying mouth. Just take your pick. Option A, you ante up the DNA and maybe—maybe—you avoid the worst. Option B, I go straight to Dad.”
Her fists flew to her hips, and I could see the hamster on the wheel in her head furiously peddling through her lack of options. All the dancing and pre
varicating and outright lying, and her road was suddenly coming to a dead end. Ahead was a cliff of disaster with only one sliver of a way out.
Tired of her stalling, I shook the box again. “Do I wait until Dad gets home and save this for him? Or are we doing this?”
“Fine.”
She spat the single word of defeat, and I focused on prepping the test instead of on the rivers of tears wearing away the mountain of her defiance. She hunched, shoulders shaking.
“Stand up, Marisa. Open your mouth.”
After getting her sample and waiting for it to dry, Marisa sank to the floor. She filled out the information and consent forms for Grace’s test in silence. Then, I sealed the sample in its paper envelope and put everything back in my bag, thinking through how I was going to get through this test with Grace. Marisa wanted to be there, but I didn’t trust her, and I thought it would be simpler if I replaced Grace’s toothbrush, collected it after she used it, and said nothing.
Once I had all the samples, I’d overnight them to the lab and wait. I told Marisa we’d have the results in four or five days, but I paid to have the tests expedited. I’d know two days after they received the samples and have some breathing room before I told her.
Marisa sat cross-legged on the floor, sour and contemplative. The sight of her left me colder than ever. How had I ever thought I’d loved her?
“I saw Peggy on my way in. She’s expecting me to stay for dinner. Tell her I had something come up and not to bother setting an extra place. I’ll be back over before Grace’s bedtime.”
I turned heel and walked out.
Chapter 26
Delilah
When Griffin returned with Grace’s DNA sample, he looked like roadkill again. He slid into bed next to me, and I felt his forehead.
“Are you sure you’re not coming down with something?”
“Is fuck-my-life-itis a thing?” He knocked the back of his head on the headboard. “I’m trying not to feel sorry for myself, but that was the most wretched thing I’ve ever done. Grace didn’t notice a thing. Why would she? She trusts me and her mother. And we’re lying to her.”