Chương 8
He read the percentages.
Then the conclusion.
Probability of paternity: greater than 99.999%.
Nathan Brooks could not be excluded as the biological father of Sophie Miller.
He read it again.
Nothing moved in the coffee shop.
Of course everything moved.
A blender started behind the counter.
Someone laughed near the door.
A woman in a red coat argued quietly into her phone about daycare pickup.
Nathan sat among all of it with a fact that had existed for seven years whether he knew it or not.
He called Rachel.
She answered immediately.
“You got it.”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Rachel whispered, “Okay.”
Nathan did not trust himself to say more.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Is Sophie there?”
“She’s at school.”
“Good.”
Rachel breathed.
“I got the email too.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
Nathan stared at the document.
“It’s me.”
Rachel made a sound.
Not surprise.
Something closer to grief.
Nathan closed his eyes.
“I’m her father.”
“Yes.”
He expected anger.
Instead, for several seconds, he felt such overwhelming sadness that he could barely breathe.
Not for himself.
For Mark.
For Rachel.
For Sophie.
For the version of Nathan who had held a newborn seven years earlier and joked about Winston Churchill.
He put one hand over his eyes.
Rachel stayed on the line.
“Nathan?”
“I’m here.”
“We need to tell her together.”
“Yes.”
“Not tonight if you’re going to fall apart.”
He almost objected.
Then he looked at his hand shaking against the table.
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.”
Nathan left the coffee shop without buying coffee.
He drove to his father’s house.
Richard opened the door wearing sweatpants and an old Broncos sweatshirt.
Nathan had never seen him at eleven in the morning on a weekday dressed like that.
“You’re not working?”
Richard shrugged.
“Your mother told me I was driving everyone crazy.”
Nathan entered.
Eleanor came from the kitchen.
One look at his face and she stopped.
“It came back?”
Nathan nodded.
Richard said, “And?”
Nathan handed him the printed result.
Richard read it standing up.
Eleanor did not bother.
She walked to Nathan and wrapped her arms around him.
He had not expected that either.
Nathan let his forehead rest against his mother’s shoulder.
Richard sat down.
“My granddaughter.”
Nathan looked at him.
“Dad.”
Richard immediately corrected himself.
“Sorry.”
Nathan sat opposite him.
“We need to be careful.”
“I know.”
“No, really.”
Richard looked offended.
“I heard you.”
“This is not something we announce.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You told Aunt Linda about my first apartment before I moved in.”
“That was different.”
“You told her what I paid.”
Richard looked at Eleanor.
“She asked.”
Eleanor sighed.
Nathan almost smiled.
Then Richard looked down at the test result.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You need a lawyer.”
Nathan stiffened.
Eleanor said, “Richard.”
“What? He does.”
Nathan looked at his father.
This was the solution Nathan had expected himself to want.
Documents.
Rights.
Procedure.
Instead it made him nauseous.
“I’m not suing Rachel.”
“I didn’t say sue.”
“You said lawyer.”
“You’re her legal father or you’re not. There’s a birth certificate. There are inheritance issues. School authorization. Medical decisions.”
Nathan stared at him.
Richard continued.
“You need to understand what exists before you start signing things.”
Nathan hated that he was right.
That afternoon Nathan met with a family-law attorney recommended by one of his partners.
She was in her fifties, direct, and unimpressed by emotional shortcuts.
She explained that biological paternity and legal parentage were related but not identical questions, especially because Mark had been listed on Sophie’s birth certificate and had acted as her father until his death.
She told Nathan not to assume a laboratory report automatically rewrote seven years of legal history.
“What do you want?” she asked.
Nathan had prepared questions about parental rights.
The question stopped him.
“I want to be her father.”
The attorney waited.
Nathan corrected himself.
“I am her biological father.”
“That’s a fact. I asked what you want.”
He looked at his notebook.
“I want her to know me that way.”
“Okay.”
“I want to be allowed to make decisions if Rachel can’t.”
“Okay.”
“I want medical records to reflect accurate history.”
“Reasonable.”
“I want—”
He stopped.
The attorney waited.
Nathan looked at her.
“I don’t want to erase Mark.”
She nodded.
“That answer is going to matter more than anything else you’ve said.”
Nathan left with fewer certainties than he brought in.
That evening Victoria came to his apartment.
She texted first.
Can I bring your ring back?
Nathan stared at the message.
He had forgotten she still had it.
Then remembered she had left it on the lodge desk.
Apparently someone had returned it to her.
He wrote:
Yes.
Victoria arrived twenty minutes later.
She stood outside holding a small velvet box.
Nathan let her in.
They sat at the kitchen table.
She placed the box between them.
“I thought mailing it would be worse.”
“Probably.”
Victoria looked around.
Her toothbrush was still in his bathroom.
A pair of running shoes sat near the entry.
There was almond milk in the refrigerator because Nathan hated it and Victoria liked it.
Their relationship had not disappeared simply because trust had.
Nathan pushed the box aside.
“The result came back.”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“And?”
“I’m Sophie’s father.”
She closed her eyes.
“Okay.”
He watched her.
She opened them.
“How are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does she know?”
“Tomorrow.”
Victoria nodded.
Nathan folded his hands.
“I need the full truth from you.”
“You have it.”
“No.”
Victoria went still.
“I know Rachel asked you not to tell me immediately. I know you pressured her to wait. I know you told her to delete the screenshot.”
“Yes.”
“Did you delete anything else?”
Victoria looked toward the window.
Nathan felt his stomach tighten.
“What?”
She rubbed her thumb against her palm.
“There were messages between us.”
“You and Rachel.”
“Yes.”
“What messages?”
Victoria looked at him.
May you like
“I deleted the thread after Sophie saw part of it.”
Nathan sat back.
