Chapter 4 - Shadows in the Family Tree
The words hung in the air like poison gas.
Paternity.
For nine seconds, I didn't breathe. I didn't move. I simply looked at the man I had shared a bed with for four years, the man who had kissed my forehead when our son was born, the man who had promised to protect our family.
“You think I cheated on you?” I asked.
The question came out flat, stripped of all emotion, because the alternative—that my husband actually believed I would betray him—was too absurd to process.
“No!” Derek stepped forward quickly, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “No, Audrey, I don't think that. You know I don't.”
“Then why did you let your mother steal our son’s hair to run a genetic verification behind my back?”
“Because Mom wouldn't drop it!” Derek hissed, his frustration finally spilling over. “You don't know what she’s like when she gets an idea in her head. She’s been whispering in my ear for months. ‘He doesn’t have the Vance nose.’ ‘He doesn’t have our eye color.’ ‘Audrey spent too much time working at that art studio downtown before you got married.’ She drove me crazy with it, Audrey! I let her do it just to shut her up! I thought, ‘Fine, she takes some hair, she runs a private test, it proves Miles is 100% mine, and Mom will finally leave us alone.’”
I stared at him in horror.
“You gambled with our son’s dignity—you let your mother traumatize an eleven-month-old child and violate every boundary we have—just to win an argument with your mother?”
“I didn't think it was going to be a big deal!” Derek shouted, his voice echoing off the kitchen walls.
“Mamma?”
A small, sleep-roughened voice drifted down from the top of the stairs.
We both froze.
I looked toward the hallway. Little Miles was standing at the top of the wooden staircase, his bare feet peering over the edge of the step, wearing his blue pajamas with little white stars. His freshly shaved head looked tiny and vulnerable under the hallway light, the uneven patches stark against his pale skin. He was rubbing his eyes with one small fist, clutching his blue elephant in the other.
He had woken up from his nap.
Before Derek could move, I brushed past him, running up the stairs and scooping Miles into my arms. He buried his face against my shoulder immediately, his little body warm and trembling slightly from the abrupt awakening.
“I’ve got you, baby,” I murmured, pressing kisses against the stubble of his new haircut, ignoring the hot tears burning behind my own eyelids. “Mamma’s right here. You’re safe.”
I carried him back down the stairs, deliberately keeping my distance from Derek. I walked straight to the kitchen island, picked up my purse and car keys, and grabbed the sealed evidence bag of hair off the side table.
“Where are you going?” Derek asked, stepping toward the front door as I shifted Miles onto my hip.
“I’m going to my sister’s house,” I said, my voice cold and absolute.
“Audrey, don’t be ridiculous. It’s getting dark. Stay here, we’ll talk about this—my mother is crossing the line, I admit it, we’ll set boundaries—”
“Your mother didn't cross a line, Derek. She crossed a border.” I looked at him with a clarity that felt like ice water in my veins. “And you helped her hold the door open.”
“You can’t just take my son and leave—”
May you like
“He is my son, too,” I interrupted, stepping past him into the foyer. “And right now, the only place he is safe is away from this house, away from your mother, and away from a father who values his mother’s paranoia over his wife’s trust.”
I pushed open the front door into the chilly Columbus evening, leaving Derek standing alone in the center of the kitchen.
