I laughed. Actually laughed at that.
“His reputation?”
I repeated.
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
He hung up without answering.
Three weeks after I submitted the samples, the email from Gan Trust arrived at 9:47 p.m. on a Tuesday. Nathan was traveling for work, a project consultation in Boston that couldn’t be rescheduled. I was alone in our apartment, a half-eaten salad on the coffee table, my laptop open to a streaming service I hadn’t actually been watching.
The subject line was clinical. Your DNA analysis results. Secure document.
I entered my password. I verified my identity. I opened the PDF, and then I read it three times because the first two times the words didn’t make sense.
Subject A, Tory Townsend, shows 0% genetic match with subject B, Gerald Townsend.
I’d expected that. I’d prepared for it. Even steeled myself for the confirmation that Gerald was right about one thing, even if he was wrong about everything else.
But then came the second line.
Subject A, Tory Townsend, shows 0% genetic match with subject C, Diane Townsend.
I stopped breathing. Zero percent. Not my father’s daughter. Not my mother’s daughter.
I called Jean Trust’s after hours line, my voice cracking as I demanded to speak with someone, anyone who could explain this. A technician walked me through the results. No contamination, no errors, no possibility of a mistake. The samples were clear. The science was conclusive. I was not related to either of my parents, which meant my mother had never cheated. Gerald had been wrong about that for 28 years.
But it also meant something else. Something impossible.
If Diane Townsen didn’t have an affair, if she’d been faithful like she’d always claimed, then how was I not her biological daughter?
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