The DNA Test
Chapter 07 - The DNA Test
Ethan agreed to the DNA test because facts felt safer than feelings.
The result arrived four days later.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
He read it in his truck outside the military reserve center.
Mason Cross was his father.
The words did not erase Grant.
That was what Ethan had not expected.
Grant remained in every childhood memory.
Teaching him to tie fishing knots.
Sitting beside his hospital bed after a broken arm.
Driving through a snowstorm to bring him home from college.
A man could love a child and still commit unforgivable crimes.
That truth was harder than choosing one father over another.
Mason called that evening.
“I heard the result came in.”
“It did.”
Silence.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Mason told him.
Ethan stared through the windshield.
“What do you want me to call you?”
Mason gave a tired laugh.
“Mason works.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I know.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“I’m not ready.”
“You don’t owe me a title.”
The answer made Ethan angrier because it asked for nothing.
Mason continued.
“I would like the chance to know you. But I won’t make you carry my missing years like a debt.”
Ethan looked at the military photograph hanging from his rearview mirror. Grant had stood beside him at graduation.
“I don’t know what to do with the father who raised me.”
“You keep whatever was good.”
Ethan went still.
Mason’s voice softened.
“Grant took enough from both of us. Don’t let him take your good memories too.”
That night Ethan opened the first prison letter.
Mason had written it three days after Ethan’s birth.
May you like
Dear Ethan, your mother says you have my eyes. I hope she is wrong. Mine have seen too much already.
Ethan read until dawn.
