Chương 10
“What should I have said?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then stop criticizing.”
At a red light, Rafael looked at her.
“You’re scared he won’t be ours.”
Teresa stared out the window.
“Yes.”
“And you’re scared he will.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“Me too.”
The results came nine days later.
Their attorney asked them to meet in person.
Teresa knew before he spoke.
Maybe from his face.
Maybe because some part of her had always known and another part had always refused to trust knowing.
The laboratory found a biological relationship consistent with Teresa and Rafael being Adrian’s parents.
The attorney explained probabilities.
Teresa did not hear the number.
She heard son.
Rafael sat motionless.
The lawyer stopped talking.
Teresa looked at her husband.
“Rafa.”
He nodded once.
Then again.
He put both hands over his face.
She had seen him cry perhaps twelve times in forty years.
This was not like the others.
No sound.
His shoulders simply folded.
Teresa reached for him.
She did not cry immediately.
Her first emotion was anger.
Pure, enormous anger.
Because certainty arrived too late.
Thirty-four years late.
She stood so quickly the chair tipped behind her.
The lawyer got up.
“Teresa?”
“They took him.”
Rafael lowered his hands.
She looked at nobody.
“They took him.”
The sentence filled the conference room.
Not died.
Not lost.
Not maybe.
Taken.
She walked to the window and pressed her palm against the glass.
Cars moved below.
People crossed the street carrying bags.
Someone rode past on a bicycle.
The world continued.
Again.
She hated it again.
Adrian received the results in another office across town.
Claire was with him.
Evelyn was not.
He read the report twice.
The names looked strange together.
Teresa Alvarez.
Rafael Alvarez.
Adrian Vale.
Biological relationship.
He expected some internal click.
A piece moving into its correct position.
Instead he felt almost nothing.
Claire watched him carefully.
“What do you need?”
He stared at the report.
“To not be asked that for five minutes.”
“Okay.”
She sat beside him.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Adrian said, “My father is Rafael Alvarez.”
Claire looked at him.
“Yes.”
“My dad is Thomas Vale.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his face.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“It feels impossible.”
“I know.”
He laughed weakly.
“You say you know a lot.”
“I’m trying not to say something worse.”
“Like what?”
“I have several candidates.”
“Give me one.”
She thought.
“At least you won’t have to wonder why you hate golf.”
He looked at her.
Thomas Vale had loved golf.
Adrian had spent twenty years failing to enjoy it.
“That’s terrible.”
“I warned you.”
He laughed.
Then, without warning, began to cry.
Claire moved closer but did not touch him until he leaned into her.
The first meeting after the DNA confirmation happened in Teresa and Rafael’s apartment because Teresa refused Adrian’s offer of a private dining room.
“I don’t want staff,” she said.
So Adrian came to them.
He brought nothing.
That surprised Teresa.
She had half expected flowers or wine or something expensive and unnecessary.
Rafael opened the door.
For a moment, the two men stood looking at each other.
Then Rafael said, “Come in.”
Adrian stepped into the apartment where his biological parents had lived for seventeen years.
He noticed the photographs first.
Children everywhere.
None of him.
Then he noticed a framed photograph on a shelf.
Teresa and Rafael in their twenties, before 1992.
Rafael had thick black hair.
Teresa looked directly at the camera with an expression Adrian recognized.
Not from his own face.
From the mirror when he was irritated.
He looked away.
Teresa came from the kitchen wiping her hands.
“I made too much food.”
Rafael said, “She made enough for twelve.”
“I didn’t know what he likes.”
“You could have asked.”
“I did not want to bother him.”
Adrian said, “I eat almost anything.”
Teresa looked disappointed.
“That is not useful.”
He smiled.
They ate chicken with rice, roasted peppers, beans, warm tortillas.
Nobody talked about DNA for fourteen minutes.
Teresa asked about work.
Adrian explained he managed an investment company that had grown out of the Vale family’s real estate holdings.
Rafael asked whether that meant he was a landlord.
Adrian said, “Sometimes.”
Rafael frowned.
“I don’t like landlords.”
Teresa kicked him under the table.
“What?”
“You know what.”
Adrian laughed.
“I don’t like some landlords either.”
“Convenient.”
“Rafa.”
“What? He’s rich. He can survive one opinion.”
Adrian looked at him.
“I can.”
The tension eased.
Then Teresa asked, “Do you want children?”
Claire had warned Adrian that Teresa might ask.
He still nearly choked.
Rafael said, “Teresa.”
“What?”
“You cannot ask that.”
“I already did.”
Adrian drank water.
“We’ve talked about it.”
Teresa waited.
Rafael stared at her.
She sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, apparently it is not.”
Adrian smiled.
“We would like children someday.”
Teresa nodded.
That was all.
But her eyes changed.
Adrian saw.
He realized she was not merely asking about grandchildren.
She was grieving children she had never watched him become ready to have.
The thought made him resent her grief.
Then he felt guilty.
Then resentful about the guilt.
He put down his fork.
“I need to say something.”
Teresa immediately stiffened.
“I’m not changing my name.”
She blinked.
“I didn’t ask you.”
“I know.”
“I would never ask you.”
“Okay.”
“I told you at the hotel. Adrian is your name.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you say it like I was asking?”
He looked at her.
Rafael leaned back.
“Because he needed to say it.”
Teresa frowned.
Adrian nodded.
“Yes.”
She considered that.
“Fine.”
He continued.
“I’m not calling you Mom and Dad.”
Teresa’s face went still.
Rafael looked at his plate.
Adrian hated himself.
But he kept going.
“I don’t know what to call you yet. I don’t know what any of this means. Thomas raised me. Evelyn raised me. Whatever they did, whatever they knew, that doesn’t vanish.”
Teresa’s fingers tightened around her napkin.
“I know.”
May you like
“Do you?”
Her eyes flashed.
