Because suddenly the slap seemed smaller than the architecture surrounding it.
He had built my entire identity around a lie that made me easier to control.
Nobody wants you.
Without us, you have nothing.
Except somebody had wanted me badly enough to spend years using courts and lawyers to find me.
Margaret waited until I had stopped crying.
“There is one more thing we should establish carefully,” she said.
“Richard believes he is your biological father.
The records strongly support that.
But belief isn’t the same as scientific confirmation.”
I looked at Richard.
He nodded.
“DNA test.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t hesitate.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I agreed.
The wait for the result lasted days, but those days changed the shape of my life.
I went back to the Talbet house once, accompanied, to collect my belongings.
Gerald stood in the doorway.
His confidence had returned, or at least the performance of it.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“You run away after one family disagreement and bring people here like I’m some criminal.”
I looked at him.
“One family disagreement?”
His eyes flicked toward the person standing nearby.
“I lost my temper.
You humiliated me.”
“You hit me.”
“I said I lost my temper.”
Donna appeared behind him.
She looked exhausted.
Megan stood halfway up the staircase holding her phone, but for once it wasn’t pointed at me.
I walked downstairs to my room.
Nothing had changed.
Mattress.
Water heater.
Nail in the wall.
It looked smaller now.
I packed the rest of my clothes into two garbage bags.
When I came upstairs, Gerald blocked the hallway.
“Those people are using you.”
“Move.”
“That man abandoned you.”
“You knew he was looking for me.”
His face shifted.
Barely.
But I saw it.
Donna saw it too.
“What does she mean?” Donna asked.
Gerald turned on her.
“Not now.”
“You told me those letters were nothing.”
The hallway went silent.
I stopped walking.
Donna’s face drained of color.
