Chapter 5
The next three days were a blur.
Police stations.
Statements.
Interviews.
Child protective services.
Jack was in jail.
No bond.
Charges stacked up against him like cordwood.
Fraud.
Money laundering.
Medical malpractice.
Three counts of manslaughter.
Kidnapping.
Child endangerment.
The DA was talking about adding more.
Carol and Ashley had been arrested too, just like I'd promised.
They'd been released on bond, but their passports were seized.
Their assets frozen.
They were living in a cheap motel on the wrong side of Fort Worth, their fancy cars repossessed, their credit cards declined.
Chloe had turned state's evidence.
She'd given the police everything.
Every text.
Every email.
Every conversation she'd ever had with Jack or Carol.
She'd had no idea about the fraud.
No idea about the dead patients.
She'd thought Jack was divorced.
That he was a wealthy, successful surgeon whose bitter ex-wife wouldn't let him see his kids.
Carol had told her that.
Carol had told her a lot of lies.
She was cooperating fully.
The DA had promised her immunity in exchange for her testimony.
My kids were safe.
They were staying with my aunt and uncle in a gated community outside Fort Worth.
No one knew where they were.
No one could get to them.
They were in therapy.
Twice a week.
They were confused.
Angry.
Sad.
But they were safe.
And they were mine.
I was sitting in the conference room of my attorney's office on the fourth day when the world turned upside down again.
Gerald was there.
My attorney, Rita—one of the toughest divorce lawyers in Texas.
And Marcus, who had become my unofficial bodyguard after the lake house incident.
Rita slid a stack of papers across the table to me.
"The results from the DNA tests came back," she said. Her face was grave. "Megan... you need to read this."
I frowned.
"DNA tests? What DNA tests?"
"Jack's attorney filed a motion yesterday," Rita said. "He's contesting paternity. Of both kids."
I stared at her.
Laughed.
A sharp, bitter sound.
"That's ridiculous. Jack is their father. I was never with anyone else. He was there for both births. He cut their cords. He signed their birth certificates. He can't just—"
"Read the report, Megan," Gerald said quietly.
I looked at him.
His face was white.
Afraid.
My stomach dropped.
I picked up the papers.
Read the first page.
Then the second.
Then the third.
The room started to spin.
No.
No.
This was wrong.
This was impossible.
"It's a mistake," I said. My voice was shaking. "It has to be a mistake. Run them again. Use different samples. There's no way—"
"We ran them three times," Gerald said. "Three different labs. All the same result, Meg. Jack is not the father of either child."
I dropped the papers.
They scattered across the table.
"That's impossible," I whispered. "I never cheated. Never. In ten years. I loved him. I was faithful. How can—"
Then it hit me.
The hospital.
Twelve years ago.
I'd been working as a nurse at Parkland Memorial.
I'd been in a terrible car accident.
Broken ribs.
Internal bleeding.
I'd needed surgery.
And I'd been given blood.
Lots of blood.
I'd been unconscious for three days.
When I woke up, Jack had been sitting beside my bed.
Holding my hand.
Telling me how much he loved me.
How he'd been so scared.
Six weeks later, I'd found out I was pregnant with Lily.
We'd gotten married three months after that.
Shotgun wedding.
Everyone had whispered.
But I'd been happy.
I'd thought I was the luckiest woman alive.
Now...
"Oh my God," I breathed. "The hospital. The accident. The blood transfusion. They must have mixed up the samples. The DNA from the blood—"
"No," Rita said. "That's not how DNA testing works. The blood transfusion wouldn't affect your eggs, Megan. Or the children's DNA. This is something else."
Gerald reached across the table.
Picked up one of the scattered pages.
Pointed to a line near the bottom.
"Look at this," he said. "The paternal haplotype. The markers. I ran them through the database. Megan... they're a match."
"A match to who?" I said.
He looked me in the eye.
"To your brother."
The silence in the room was deafening.
My brother.
Daniel.
Who had died in Iraq when we were 22.
My twin brother.
My other half.
The person who had known me better than anyone in the world.
"That's sick," I said. I stood up so fast my chair fell over. "That's disgusting. How dare you? How dare you suggest something like that? Daniel was my brother. My twin. He would never— I would never—"
"I'm not suggesting anything happened between you and Daniel," Gerald said quickly. Standing up. Hands raised. "I know you. I knew Daniel. That's impossible. But there's another explanation. One that makes sense. If you'll just sit down and let me explain."
I stood there, shaking, for what felt like an hour.
Then I sat.
"Talk," I said.
"Twelve years ago," Gerald said. "Right before Daniel deployed. He went to a fertility clinic in Houston. He made a donation. A large one. He told me about it once. Said he wanted to make sure if anything happened to him over there, a part of him would live on. He never told you. He knew you'd think it was weird."
I stared at him.
I remembered.
Daniel had gone to Houston for a "weekend with friends" right before he left.
He'd been evasive about what he'd been doing.
I'd thought he'd had a fling.
I'd teased him about it.
He'd just smiled.
Said it was a secret.
"Okay," I said. "He donated. So what? That doesn't explain how his DNA ended up in my children."
"The clinic he used," Gerald said. "It was part of a larger network. One that had... let's say... loose ethical standards. They had a program. For wealthy couples who couldn't conceive. They'd pay attractive, intelligent, healthy young women to act as surrogates. But they didn't always use the husband's sperm. Sometimes they used donor sperm. Without telling anyone. And sometimes... when a patient came in for fertility treatment of their own... they'd use the wrong sample. On purpose. Because the donor's profile was better. Because they got a bonus for every successful pregnancy from their top donors."
He paused.
"Daniel was their top donor. High IQ. Perfect health. Military background. Handsome. They used his samples for hundreds of women. All over Texas. All without his knowledge. Without the couples' knowledge."
I felt sick.
"And me?" I whispered.
"You went to that same clinic," Gerald said. "Six months after the accident. You and Jack. You were having trouble conceiving. Remember? You went in for a simple IUI procedure. They told you it was Jack's sperm. They lied. They used Daniel's. Both times. For Lily and for Noah."
The room tilted.
I grabbed the edge of the table to hold on.
My children.
My beautiful, perfect children.
Were my brother's biological kids.
And mine.
Biologically, they were my children.
And my niece and nephew.
But not Jack's.
Never Jack's.
All this time.
All these years.
Jack had known.
He'd known from the beginning.
That was why he'd never loved them the way a father should.
That was why he'd been so eager to replace me with Chloe.
To build a new family.
Because Lily and Noah had never really been his.
And Carol had known too.
That was why she'd hated them.
Hated me.
Because I'd given her son children that weren't his blood.
Children that carried my family's genes, not hers.
She'd spent ten years resenting me for it.
For giving her a fake family.
"That's why he did it," I said. The realization hit me like a physical blow. "All of it. The cheating. The stealing. The lies. He knew. He knew the kids weren't his. He stayed for the money. For my father's trust fund. He used the kids as an excuse to get access to my accounts. And he was just waiting for the right moment to leave. To take the money and run with Chloe and start over with a real family of his own."
Rita nodded.
"The timeline lines up. He found out when Lily was six months old. A routine blood test for an ear infection. The types didn't match. He did a secret paternity test. Confirmed it. But he never said a word. He just... stayed. And planned."
I thought of all the times Jack had been "too busy" to go to Lily's recitals.
Too tired to play catch with Noah.
All the times he'd looked at them like they were strangers in his house.
I'd thought it was the stress of his job.
I'd thought it was me.
It had never been me.
It had been this.
This horrible, impossible secret.
"So what happens now?" I said. My voice was barely audible.
"Now?" Rita said. "Now Jack has no legal claim to the children at all. He's not their father. He never was. He has no rights. No custody. No visitation. Nothing. He'll be lucky if he's ever allowed within a hundred miles of them again."
She paused.
"And the other thing? The clinic. The doctors who did this. We sue. We sue them for everything they have. Every last penny. What they did to you. To Daniel. To those kids... it's criminal. They'll lose their licenses. They'll go to prison. And you'll get more money than you'll ever be able to spend in three lifetimes."
I didn't care about the money.
I looked at Gerald.
"Daniel knew," I said. "He knew he donated. Did he ever suspect? Did he ever know?"
Gerald shook his head.
"He died six months after Noah was born, Meg. He never even got to meet Noah. He held Lily once. When she was a newborn. He told me she was the most beautiful baby he'd ever seen. That she had your eyes. He never knew. Thank God he never knew."
I closed my eyes.
I thought of Daniel.
My brother.
My best friend.
Who had died thinking he'd never have children of his own.
And all this time, he'd had two.
Two perfect, beautiful children.
Who had his smile.
His laugh.
His stubbornness.
I opened my eyes.
Wiped the tears from my face.
Stood up.
"Okay," I said. "We sue the clinic. We make sure they never do this to anyone else ever again. And Jack? We make sure he rots in prison for the rest of his miserable life. For everything he did. To me. To the kids. To those poor patients who died on his table."
I looked at Rita.
"And the kids? Their birth certificates? We change them. Remove Jack's name. Put Daniel's. They deserve to know who their real father was. They deserve to know he was a hero. A good man. Not the monster they've been calling Dad for the last ten years."
Rita nodded.
"I'll get the paperwork started today."
I walked to the window.
Looked out over the Dallas skyline.
My whole life had been a lie.
Every part of it.
My marriage.
My children's paternity.
My husband's career.
My in-laws' affection.
All of it.
Fake.
But I had the kids.
I had Lily and Noah.
They were real.
They were mine.
And no matter how complicated their origin was...
They were the only thing that had ever mattered.
May you like
I turned back to the room.
"Let's get to work," I said.
