Chương 6
“I did.”
“And?”
“They explained it.”
“Then why call?”
Another pause.
His voice changed.
“Because I don’t want to call my mother.”
Elena closed her eyes.
There it was.
Not an argument.
Not a demand.
A forty-three-year-old man saying mother like a frightened child.
“You should,” Elena said.
“I know.”
“She owes you answers.”
“I know.”
“But whatever she says, yesterday doesn’t erase forty-three years.”
“That sounds generous coming from you.”
“It’s not generosity.”
“What is it?”
Elena watched Noah color outside the shark’s outline.
“Something a five-year-old explained to me over chocolate cake.”
Daniel gave a breath that almost became a laugh.
Then he said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“The dinner.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“You didn’t throw the plate.”
“I sat there.”
“Yes.”
“I’ve sat there a lot.”
Elena did not rescue him.
After several seconds he said, “Michael used to tell me that.”
“What?”
“That silence is a vote.”
She remembered.
Michael said it when Elena was fourteen after she refused to defend a classmate being mocked at lunch.
You don’t have to start every fight, Leni. But silence is still a vote.
“I hated when he was right,” Daniel said.
“So did I.”
“I miss him.”
Elena looked down.
“Me too.”
The second test was scheduled for Tuesday.
Margaret refused to attend.
Her attorney sent an email saying she had no interest in participating in “further harassment predicated on unreliable genetic speculation.”
Robert forwarded it to Claire.
Claire forwarded it to Daniel.
Daniel forwarded it to Elena with the message:
Apparently my existence is now unreliable genetic speculation.
Elena stared at the text for several seconds before laughing.
Then felt guilty.
Then laughed again.
On Tuesday, Robert, Daniel, Noah, and Elena went to a different laboratory forty miles away.
Claire came without being asked.
“You’re not testing,” Daniel told her.
“I’m moral support.”
“For who?”
“Undecided.”
Noah liked the technician because she let him choose the color of his specimen label.
“Blue,” he said.
“Bold choice.”
“It’s my birthday color.”
His birthday had been three days earlier.
Nobody corrected him.
They had their cheeks swabbed.
Daniel watched the technician seal each sample individually.
“You’re sure those numbers match?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nobody changes them after we leave?”
“No.”
“And—”
Claire touched his arm.
“Dan.”
He stopped.
“Right.”
Outside, they stood in the parking lot beneath a cloudless sky.
Robert suggested lunch.
Daniel said he had work.
Claire said he had already taken the day off.
Daniel looked at her.
“How do you know that?”
“You told me yesterday.”
“Oh.”
They went to lunch.
For one hour nobody discussed DNA.
Robert complained about his neighbor’s new fence.
Claire described a woman at her office who microwaved fish.
Noah dropped a French fry into his milk.
Daniel watched it sink.
“Why?”
Noah shrugged.
“I wanted to see.”
Daniel nodded.
“Respectable.”
Elena looked around the table.
It was the first Hale meal she could remember that Margaret was not organizing.
Nobody cared which fork they used.
Nobody commented on Noah’s elbows.
Nobody asked Elena when she intended to finish college.
Robert ordered pie before his sandwich arrived.
When the results came six days later, they were the same.
Daniel called Elena at 7:14 in the morning.
“It’s real.”
She was brushing Noah’s hair before school.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know why people keep saying that.”
“Because we don’t know what else to say.”
“Yeah.”
Noah complained, “Too hard.”
Elena loosened her grip on the brush.
“Sorry.”
Daniel heard him.
“School?”
“Unfortunately.”
Noah shouted, “I like school!”
“You complained for twenty minutes about socks.”
“The seam is bad.”
Daniel said, “He’s right. Sock seams are tyranny.”
Noah grinned.
Elena put the phone on speaker.
“Please don’t encourage him.”
Daniel asked, “Can I see you today?”
Elena looked at the clock.
“What happened?”
“Mom called.”
That got her attention.
“What did she say?”
“That I should come over.”
“And?”
“I said not without Dad.”
“Good.”
“She said this was between us.”
“Of course she did.”
Daniel was silent.
Then: “She sounded scared.”
Elena sat on the arm of the couch.
“What do you want from me?”
“Come with us.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“This is your family conversation.”
“You’re family.”
The words landed strangely.
Noah was trying to put on one sneaker without untying it.
Elena watched him fight the shoe.
“I don’t think Margaret agrees.”
“I don’t particularly care what Margaret agrees with this morning.”
It was the first time Elena had ever heard Daniel refer to his mother by her first name.
She noticed.
So did he.
“Please,” he said.
At four that afternoon, they met at the Hale house.
The broken platter was gone.
The floor had been cleaned.
The dining table had no cloth on it.
Noah stayed with Claire at Elena’s apartment. Elena had refused to bring him back.
Margaret sat in the living room.
She wore a cream silk blouse and matching trousers, almost identical to the birthday dinner. Elena wondered whether it was armor or habit.
Robert sat across from her.
Daniel remained standing.
Elena took a chair near the door.
Margaret looked at her.
“I asked for Daniel.”
“He asked for me,” Elena said.
Margaret turned to him.
“Why?”
Daniel’s laugh had no humor.
“I don’t know, Mom. Maybe I wanted a witness.”
“You think I’m going to lie?”
“Yes.”
Robert looked down.
Margaret’s eyes hardened.
Daniel pulled the new laboratory report from his jacket.
“Different facility. Same result.”
“I know.”
Nobody moved.
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“How?”
Margaret looked at the report but did not take it.
“There was a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“At the hospital.”
Robert leaned forward.
“You remember.”
Margaret turned on him.
“Of course I remember.”
“You told me I was confused.”
“I was trying to prevent exactly this.”
Daniel stared at her.
“This?”
“This destruction.”
He sat down slowly.
Margaret folded her hands.
“The hospital contacted us six months after you were born.”
Robert went still.
“What?”
Elena looked at him.
May you like
His surprise was genuine.
Margaret did not look at her husband.
