Chapter 6: The Truth in Black and White
The DNA results arrived at 2:17 p.m. the following day.
David Chen walked into my study without knocking, carrying a sealed manila envelope. His face was carefully neutral, the way lawyers look when they know the information they’re about to deliver will change everything.
I was standing by the window, watching Ava and Lily in the backyard. Ava was sitting cross-legged on the grass with Lily in her lap. She was gently rocking her while humming the same soft lullaby she had used on the plane. Lily was completely calm, her tiny hand wrapped around one of Ava’s fingers.
Margaret stood a few feet away, arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching them like a hawk.
David placed the envelope on my desk.
“It’s confirmed,” he said quietly. “Ava Reed is Grace Reed’s biological daughter. The genetic markers are a clear match. There’s no doubt.”
I didn’t move at first. I just kept watching Ava through the glass.
David continued, “Margaret is also confirmed as the maternal grandmother. The three of them share the expected familial markers.”
I finally turned around.
“Does Ava know yet?” I asked.
David shook his head. “I came straight to you first, as instructed.”
I picked up the envelope, feeling its weight in my hands. Inside were papers that would rewrite the last five years of my life.
“Bring them in,” I said.
Ten minutes later, Ava and Margaret sat on the couch in my study. Ava looked nervous. Margaret looked like she was preparing for battle.
I placed the envelope on the coffee table between us.
“The results are back,” I said calmly. “Ava is Grace’s biological daughter.”
Ava closed her eyes for a second, as if she had been holding her breath for months and could finally let it go. Margaret’s face remained stony, but I saw her hands tighten into fists in her lap.
I looked directly at Ava.
“You were telling the truth,” I said. “About everything.”
Ava nodded slowly. When she spoke, her voice was quiet but steady.
“I never wanted to hurt anyone,” she said. “I just… I needed to know who she was. And when I found out she had another daughter, I wanted to see Lily. Just once.”
Margaret finally spoke, her voice sharp.
“Now that you have your proof, what are you going to do? Throw us out? Call the press? Turn this into some dramatic family scandal?”
I looked at her.
“I’m going to do what Grace should have done years ago,” I said. “I’m going to make sure Ava is taken care of.”
Ava’s head snapped up.
“I don’t want your money,” she said quickly. “That’s not why I came.”
“I know,” I replied. “But whether you want it or not, you’re Grace’s daughter. That makes you Lily’s half-sister. And I don’t turn my back on family.”
Margaret stood up abruptly.
“This is exactly what Grace was afraid of,” she said. “You people with your money and your lawyers and your perfect lives. You think you can just absorb people into your world like it’s nothing.”
I met her gaze without flinching.
“Grace didn’t protect Ava by hiding her,” I said. “She protected herself. And now Ava has spent sixteen years believing her mother was dead. That ends today.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with angry tears, but she didn’t argue further.
Ava was looking down at her hands.
“What happens now?” she asked quietly.
I was quiet for a moment.
“Now,” I said, “we figure out what you want. And we figure out how to do right by you. Both of you.”
Lily started fussing in Ava’s arms. Without thinking, Ava began humming again, and Lily immediately quieted.
I watched them.
For the first time since Grace died, I felt something close to hope.
But I also felt something else.
Anger.
Not at Ava.
May you like
At Grace.
Because the woman I had loved and mourned had kept a daughter hidden from me for five years. And now I was left to pick up the pieces she had left behind.
