Chapter 5 - THE DNA RESULT GRANT DIDN’T WANTGrant refused testing for three weeks.
I understood.
Partly.
He had lost his marriage.
Possibly his fatherhood identity.
Now he feared losing his father too.
Then Maddie’s official DNA result came back.
Adrian Vale was her biological father with near-certainty based on comparison to known descendants and archived genetic material preserved for medical research.
That fact forced Grant’s decision.
If Vale might also be Grant’s biological father, then Maddie’s genetics raised a terrifying question.
Was Grant biologically related to the donor used to conceive his daughter?
We needed to know.
Not for scandal.
For health.
Genetic counseling.
Potential inherited conditions.
Grant finally tested.
The result arrived on a rainy Tuesday.
Adrian Vale was not Grant’s biological father.
Grant exhaled so hard he almost laughed.
Then the geneticist said:
“But there is something else.”
Of course there was.
Grant’s biological father was not Richard Mercer either.
The match pointed to a close paternal relative of Adrian Vale.
Specifically—
Adrian’s older brother.
Samuel Vale.
A man who died twenty-two years earlier.
Grant stared at the report.
His biological father was Samuel Vale.
Maddie’s biological father was Adrian Vale.
That meant Maddie’s donor father was Grant’s biological uncle.
The room became silent.
Biologically, Grant and Maddie were not father and daughter.
They were first cousins once removed.
The family relationship was grotesquely complicated.
Not because anyone had intentionally chosen incest.
Grant and I had chosen an anonymous donor believing he was unrelated.
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Someone changed the donor.
And whoever did it likely knew exactly who Grant was.
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