Chapter 3 - THE SECRET MY MOTHER KEPTFor several seconds I forgot how to move.
There are moments when the mind refuses to accept what the eyes are seeing.
I stared at the ultrasound photograph on my phone.
My maiden name.
My date of birth.
A medical record number I vaguely recognized from the hospital where I had received prenatal care fifteen years earlier.
There was no obvious reason Damian should possess it.
There was even less reason he should be telling me to question Caleb’s paternity.
Eric saw my expression.
“What is it?”
I locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
“Lauren.”
“Not now.”
Natalie was watching me too.
Unlike Eric, she looked as though she recognized something.
That was enough.
I took her by the arm and led her through the estate toward a private bridal suite the venue had opened for us earlier.
Dad followed.
So did Eric.
I turned at the door.
“Dad, please go home.”
“I’m not leaving either of you.”
“You spent thirty-three years rescuing Natalie every time she created a disaster. Tonight you can rescue Mom from explaining to everyone why her daughters just turned my anniversary into a live soap opera.”
His jaw tightened.
“Lauren—”
“Please.”
He left.
Not happily.
But he left.
Inside the suite, I locked the door.
Natalie sank onto a velvet chair.
“You got a message,” she said.
“Yes.”
“From Damian?”
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
I showed her the phone.
Her face emptied of color.
Eric read over my shoulder.
“What the hell?”
I watched Natalie.
“You recognize this.”
She shook her head too quickly.
“You do.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Wrong answer.”
She stood.
“I’m pregnant, Lauren. I’m exhausted, humiliated and terrified. Stop interrogating me.”
“You publicly announced you were carrying my husband’s child twenty minutes ago.”
“I made a mistake.”
“No. A mistake is sending a text to the wrong person. You conducted an affair for ten months and turned the pregnancy into a weapon.”
She looked away.
I enlarged the ultrasound.
“Why would Damian have this?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is he questioning Caleb’s father?”
Her silence changed the room.
Eric looked from her to me.
“Caleb is mine.”
“Yes,” I said.
He heard the uncertainty.
“Lauren.”
“Of course he’s yours.”
“Then why did you hesitate?”
“Because somebody is intentionally creating questions.”
Natalie whispered, “You should ask Mom.”
The floor seemed to shift.
“What does Mom know?”
“I promised.”
I laughed once.
“Your promises clearly have a flexible definition.”
She wiped tears from her cheek.
“This one matters.”
“To whom?”
“To Mom.”
I grabbed my purse.
“Then we’re going to see Mom.”
Eric moved toward the door.
I stopped him.
“You aren’t coming.”
“Caleb is my son.”
“And he is currently angry enough at you without being dragged into whatever this is.”
“What if Damian is telling the truth?”
“About what?”
He couldn’t answer.
I did.
“You think I cheated?”
“No.”
“Then stop treating a manipulative text as evidence.”
He nodded slowly.
I took Natalie with me.
The drive to my parents’ house lasted twenty-three minutes.
Natalie spoke twice.
Both times she asked me to slow down.
I wasn’t speeding.
She was stalling.
Mom opened the door wearing the same navy dress from the party.
Caleb was upstairs.
Dad had not arrived yet.
She saw Natalie beside me.
“No.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I cannot do this tonight.”
I held up the phone.
“You can.”
She looked at the ultrasound.
Then she sat down.
Not gradually.
Her knees seemed to collapse beneath her.
That was worse than any answer.
“Mom.”
She covered her face.
Natalie started crying again.
I remained standing.
“What happened fifteen years ago?”
Mom looked older than she had two hours earlier.
“When you were pregnant with Caleb, you had complications.”
“I know.”
“You had severe bleeding at eleven weeks.”
“I remember being hospitalized.”
“You were unconscious for several hours.”
“Yes.”
She glanced at Natalie.
I did too.
Natalie was only eighteen then.
“What does that have to do with Caleb’s father?”
Mom rubbed her hands together.
“There was a lab error.”
“What kind?”
“Your prenatal blood work was mixed with another patient’s.”
I frowned.
“That doesn’t change paternity.”
“No.”
“What are you hiding?”
She finally looked at me.
“Eric had undergone fertility testing.”
I stared.
Eric and I had been dating only eight months when I became pregnant.
We married five years later.
“What fertility testing?”
Mom started crying.
“He had cancer when he was nineteen.”
I knew that.
Testicular cancer.
Surgery.
Recovery.
He rarely discussed it.
“The treatment affected his fertility,” she continued.
“I know he was told it might.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“He was told he was sterile.”
I felt something cold move through my body.
“That isn’t true.”
“He told your father.”
“When?”
“When you became pregnant.”
The living room went silent.
“Eric told Dad he couldn’t be Caleb’s father?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me?”
“He begged us not to.”
I struggled to breathe.
Mom rushed on.
“Your father demanded a paternity test.”
“And?”
“You refused.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were recovering. We didn’t tell you what the test was for.”
My stomach turned.
“You tested Caleb before he was born without telling me?”
Her crying intensified.
“It was different then. Your father believed Eric deserved certainty.”
“What did the test say?”
Mom looked at Natalie.
My sister whispered, “Mom.”
“What did it say?”
Mom rose and walked toward an antique writing desk.
She opened the bottom drawer.
From beneath several folders, she removed an envelope.
Fifteen years.
She had kept it for fifteen years.
She handed it to me.
The paper inside was yellowed.
I read three lines.
Maternal sample consistent.
Presumed paternal sample excluded.
Eric Mercer was not the biological father.
I sat down.
Suddenly, every sound in the house became distant.
Mom sat beside me.
“Lauren, listen.”
“No.”
“There was a mistake.”
“You just said the test excluded him.”
“A second test was ordered.”
“Where is it?”
“We never received it.”
“Why?”
“The hospital discovered the laboratory mix-up. They invalidated several prenatal tests from that week.”
“So this could be wrong.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you keep it?”
“Your father did.”
I stared at the paper.
I had never cheated on Eric.
Not once.
Before him, there had been one man.
Jonathan Reeves.
My college boyfriend.
We had broken up almost a year before I met Eric.
The timeline didn’t work.
Unless my memory of Caleb’s estimated conception date was wrong.
It couldn’t be.
Could it?
Natalie spoke softly.
“Damian found that document last year.”
I looked up.
“How?”
“He found it in Dad’s office.”
“Why was Damian in Dad’s office?”
Nobody answered.
I looked at Mom.
“Why was Damian in this house?”
Her expression gave away another secret.
I almost screamed.
“Does this family have a competition for who can lie to me the longest?”
Mom stood.
“Damian wasn’t a stranger to us.”
“What does that mean?”
“He knew your father years before Eric met him.”
I stopped.
Eric had always told me he met Damian through a commercial real estate conference.
Mom shook her head.
“That wasn’t true.”
“Then how did they meet?”
“Your father introduced them.”
My father had claimed for twelve years that he barely knew Damian.
A car turned into the driveway.
Headlights crossed the curtains.
Dad.
I was waiting when he entered.
He saw the test in my hand.
His shoulders dropped.
“So,” he said, “she finally told you.”
“Who is Caleb’s biological father?”
Dad removed his jacket.
“Eric.”
“This says otherwise.”
“That result was wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I corrected the mistake.”
“What mistake?”
He walked to the drinks cabinet.
I blocked him.
“No bourbon. Answers.”
He stared at me.
Then at Natalie.
Then at Mom.
Finally he said, “Fifteen years ago, I paid a laboratory employee to change that report.”
I couldn’t speak.
Mom looked equally stunned.
“You told me the hospital made an error.”
“It did.”
“You paid someone?”
Dad looked at me.
“The original test didn’t exclude Eric.”
The room tilted again.
“What?”
“It confirmed him.”
My mother whispered, “Richard…”
Dad continued.
“I had the result altered.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted Eric gone.”
I stared at my father.
“You tried to convince me the father of my unborn child wasn’t his father?”
“Yes.”
The word detonated.
Natalie began sobbing.
Mom slapped Dad.
I had never seen my mother hit anyone.
He didn’t defend himself.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because I knew the Mercer family.”
“What does that mean?”
“Eric’s father had destroyed my company twenty years earlier.”
Revenge.
That was it.
My father had attempted to sabotage my relationship because he hated Eric’s father.
“And Damian?”
Dad looked ashamed.
“Damian helped me.”
Fifteen years earlier, Damian would have been twenty-three.
Young.
Ambitious.
Already involved.
“How long have you known him?”
“Most of his life.”
“Why?”
Dad looked toward Natalie.
She shook her head desperately.
“Dad, don’t.”
There it was again.
Another secret.
He ignored her.
“Damian is my son.”
Mom went completely still.
I heard myself laugh.
It wasn’t amusement.
It was shock finding the wrong exit.
“What?”
“Before I met your mother, I had a relationship with a woman named Elise Cross. Damian was born seven months before our wedding.”
My mother stared at him.
“You have a son?”
“I didn’t know until he was twenty-one.”
Natalie whispered, “That makes him…”
“Our half-brother,” I finished.
Then the sickest realization arrived.
I looked at Natalie’s pregnant stomach.
She shook her head violently.
“No.”
My father’s face changed.
He hadn’t understood until that second either.
Natalie screamed.
“No!”
Mom clutched the sofa.
If Damian was the father of Natalie’s baby—
And Damian was our biological half-brother—
Then the pregnancy was the result of a relationship Natalie had entered without knowing the truth.
Dad moved toward her.
She backed away.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Natalie—”
“You knew!”
“I didn’t know you were involved with him!”
“You brought him into our lives!”
“I didn’t know!”
“You knew he was our brother!”
Dad looked destroyed.
“Yes.”
Natalie grabbed the nearest vase and threw it against the wall.
It shattered.
Caleb appeared at the top of the staircase.
“What’s happening?”
Every adult froze.
I went to him immediately.
“Nothing you need to deal with tonight.”
His eyes found the report in my hand.
“Is this about me?”
“No.”
That was finally true.
The old DNA report was fake.
Eric was Caleb’s father.
But a new nightmare had opened.
My father’s hidden son.
My sister’s pregnancy.
And a man who had spent fifteen years arranging himself around our family.
My phone vibrated again.
Damian.
This time, there was no photograph.
Just an address.
And one sentence.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I CAME BACK, COME ALONE TOMORROW AT 10 A.M.
I stared at the message.
Then another arrived.
AND DON’T TRUST YOUR FATHER.
May you like
I looked across the room at Richard Hart.
For once, Damian and I agreed.
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