Rebecca found the least invasive path two days later.
Not through Chloe.
Not through Emma.
Through stored newborn screening samples.
Both girls had dried blood spots retained under state health regulations from the days after their births.
Access would require court approval.
There were privacy rules.
Consent issues.
Limits on use.
But the samples existed.
That mattered.
When Rebecca told me, I was sitting in Natalie’s dining room helping Emma cut construction paper into something she insisted was a fox.
“Would they need to know?” I asked quietly.
“Not yet.”
“Would anyone touch them?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
Relief came first.
Then guilt for feeling relieved at all.
The girls were not specimens.
They were not answers.
But a sample taken years earlier might allow us to establish their genetic history without dragging them into another adult room full of legal vocabulary.
“Do it,” I said.
Rebecca did not move immediately.
“Lauren, I want you to be certain.”
“I am.”
“The result may confirm Richard.”
“I know.”
“Or Carter.”
“I know.”
“Or, less likely, show something inconsistent with both.”
That possibility frightened me enough that I nearly laughed.
“How many surprises do you think one IVF cycle can contain?”
“I stopped trying to guess four days ago.”
Fair.
I looked at Emma.
She held up the paper fox.
“It has seven legs.”
“I can see that.”
“Foxes can have seven.”
“In art, apparently.”
She nodded, satisfied.
Rebecca’s voice softened.
“We’ll request sealed testing. Results to counsel first.”
“Thank you.”
By afternoon, Carter had learned about the petition.
I did not know how.
His attorney objected before the court had even scheduled argument.
The filing arrived at 4:17.
Carter opposed use of the girls’ newborn samples on privacy grounds.
He accused me of attempting to “destabilize their paternal identity during a period of familial conflict.”
I read that phrase twice.
Paternal identity.
The same man who had known for years that Richard may have interfered with the IVF cycle now wanted to preserve certainty by preventing proof.
Aaron called.
“He has a decent argument about privacy in general.”
“But?”
“But the court will care that the possible misattribution arose from alleged fraud involving his own family.”
“So he can delay.”
“Yes.”
“Stop?”
“I doubt it.”
I hated the word delay.
Delay had been the architecture of Carter’s entire life.
Not yet.
Later.
When we know more.
After viability.
After the transfer.
After the divorce.
Every truth postponed until revealing it became more dangerous than hiding it.
My phone buzzed.
Carter.
You don’t need to do this.
I did not answer.
Another message.
Whatever Dad did, I am still their father.
That sentence was more complicated.
Because in one sense, he was right.
He had signed their birth certificates.
He had held them as newborns.
Changed diapers.
Driven them to preschool.
Taught Chloe to ride a bicycle.
Sat beside Emma during a terrifying fever at age three.
Parenthood was not erased by a laboratory result.
But neither did legal and emotional fatherhood give him permission to hide their genetic history.
I saved the message.
Then another appeared.
If you test them, Richard wins.
That one stopped me.
I showed Rebecca.
“What do you think he means?”
She answered carefully.
“Maybe he believes Richard’s objective was always to make biology dominate the family.”
“Or Carter thinks acknowledging the truth gives his father power.”
“Possibly.”
I looked toward the backyard where Chloe and Emma were chasing each other through wet grass.
Richard had built an entire value system around bloodline.
It would be cruelly fitting if the way to resist him was to acknowledge biology without letting it define worth.
“We can know who fathered them without letting him decide what that means,” I said.
Rebecca nodded.
“That is exactly right.”
The court scheduled a hearing for the next morning.
Short notice.
Emergency calendar.
Everyone joined remotely except Aaron and me.
Carter appeared from his attorney’s conference room.
I had not seen him since the courthouse.
He looked different.
Unshaven.
Eyes shadowed.
No tie.
For one irrational second, I remembered loving him.
Not the man on the screen.
A younger Carter.
The one who slept in a plastic chair beside my hospital bed when Chloe was born.
The one who cried the first time she wrapped her hand around his finger.
Then I remembered the emails.
Not yet.
The lie had already begun.
The judge asked whether either party believed immediate testing was medically necessary.
No.
Then why emergency relief?
Rebecca answered.
Because evidence existed that could be lost under retention schedules, and because Richard Sterling’s actions had placed parentage directly at issue.
Carter’s lawyer argued the samples should remain untouched.
“We are not opposing preservation,” he said. “We are opposing testing.”
The judge looked at him.
“Your client believed for years that his father may have interfered with the IVF process?”
A pause.
“Mr. Sterling had concerns.”
“Did he disclose those concerns to Ms. Sterling?”
“No.”
“Did he nevertheless consent to the transfer of additional embryos?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
The judge’s expression changed slightly.
“And now he objects to establishing the truth?”
“He objects to unnecessary psychological harm to the children.”
Rebecca responded.
“The proposed process does not involve the children directly.”
Carter looked at me through the screen.
I looked back.
The judge ordered preservation immediately.
Testing would proceed under seal after independent guardian review.
Not quite victory.
Enough.
After the hearing, Carter texted.
Please call me.
I ignored it.
Then:
Not about the case. About the girls.
I hesitated.
Rebecca said, “You can speak if you want. Keep boundaries.”
I called.
Carter answered before the first full ring.
“Lauren.”
“What about the girls?”
“I want to see them.”
“When?”
“As soon as possible.”
“You told me to take them.”
“I know.”
“You signed the relocation waiver.”
“I know.”
“You stopped asking for weekends before the divorce.”
“I know.”
His repeated answer irritated me.
“Then what changed?”
Silence.
“The boy,” I said.
Another silence.
“You thought you were replacing them.”
“No.”
“You said, ‘Take the girls; I have a son coming now.’”
“I was angry.”
“No. You were relieved.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“It happened.”
He exhaled hard.
“I don’t know who I am right now.”
“That is not Chloe and Emma’s job to repair.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to rush back into their lives because the son you wanted may not be biologically yours.”
He went silent.
I regretted the cruelty in the wording.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it made the boy sound responsible.
He was not.
I corrected myself.
“The baby has nothing to do with this. Your choices do.”
Carter’s voice lowered.
“I miss them.”
I believed him.
That was the worst part.
Humans were rarely simple enough to be monsters every minute.
“You can miss them and still have harmed them.”
“I know.”
“They need consistency.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
He went silent.
I continued.
“If you want contact, we arrange it through counsel for now.”
“Supervised?”
“If necessary.”
“I’m their father.”
“Legally, yes.”
He flinched audibly.
“That’s what you think of me now?”
“This isn’t about what I think.”
“It is.”
“No. It’s about whether you can be around them without using them to reassure yourself.”
Silence.
Then he said, “Dad knew.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
“About Chloe?”
“Yes.”
“And Emma?”
“Yes.”
“How certain?”
“He told me he tested something after Chloe was born.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“I don’t know what sample he used.”
“Carter.”
“He said he had confirmation.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t know if he was telling the truth.”
“Did he show you a report?”
“No.”
“Then why believe him?”
“Because after that, he started calling Chloe ‘my little second chance.’”
I remembered.
Richard had used that phrase.
I thought it meant becoming a grandfather had softened him.
Now it sounded grotesque.
“What exactly did he say to you?”
Carter hesitated.
“That Chloe was his.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“And Emma?”
“He assumed the same embryo batch.”
“Assumed?”
“Yes.”
“So he believed my daughters were his biological children.”
“Yes.”
“And still treated them like failures because they were girls.”
Carter said nothing.
The hypocrisy was almost too large to hold.
Richard had secretly fathered daughters with me through fraud, then devalued them because he wanted a son.
I asked, “Did he ever tell you how he tested Chloe?”
“No.”
“Think.”
“He said he had what he needed from the hospital.”
Newborn sample.
Placental tissue.
Cord blood.
Something.
Richard may already have obtained a genetic comparison years ago.
Rebecca would need to know immediately.
I said, “Anything else?”
Carter’s breathing changed.
“There was a report in Dad’s safe.”
The empty safe.
Of course.
“What report?”
“I saw it once.”
“Title.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
“Northlake.”
My pulse jumped.
“What did it say?”
“I only saw the first page.”
“Carter.”
“It listed Richard and Chloe.”
“And?”
“Probability of paternity greater than ninety-nine percent.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
Not yet courtroom proof.
But Carter had seen a report.
Richard had known.
Carter had known Richard believed himself Chloe’s father.
“How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
The silence between us became enormous.
Seven years.
Carter had lived beside me for seven years knowing there was a paternity report somewhere claiming Richard was Chloe’s biological father.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His answer came broken.
“Because I thought if I did, I would lose her.”
I stared out the window.
“You didn’t trust me to understand that being her father meant more than DNA.”
“I didn’t trust anyone.”
“That was your choice.”
“I know.”
This time I let him say it.
Because it finally sounded like he understood what the words meant.
I ended the call.
Rebecca immediately moved to seek the missing Northlake report.
Richard’s safe contents were still unaccounted for.
But if a copy existed somewhere else, Northlake might have it.
The company initially resisted.
Old private testing.
Archived client confidentiality.
Then the court issued an order.
Forty-eight hours later, Northlake found an index entry.
Not the full report.
A billing record.
Client:
Richard Sterling.
Test type:
PATERNITY — MINOR CHILD.
Seven years earlier.
Subject identifier:
C.S.-F1.
Chloe Sterling — Female 1.
My hands went cold.
A second entry appeared eighteen months later.
E.S.-F2.
Emma Sterling — Female 2.
Richard had tested both girls.
Not recently.
Years ago.
And whatever the results were, he had kept them secret.
Northlake’s archive showed both reports had been physically delivered.
Recipient:
Richard Sterling.
No digital copy remained.
But billing metadata included result codes.
The geneticist recognized them.
POS-INCL.
Positive inclusion.
For both girls.
Richard had known.
Carter had known at least about Chloe.
The daughters Richard spent years treating as inadequate heirs were biologically his own.
I looked at their school photographs.
Two girls smiling into a camera.
Unaware that one man had secretly fathered them and another had knowingly raised them inside the lie.
The testing hearing no longer felt like searching for an answer.
It felt like confirming one the Sterling men had hidden for years.
Click here to continue reading: PART 22: Northlake’s Records Confirmed Richard Had Secretly Tested Both Girls Years Ago, and Margaret’s Reaction Finally Broke the Family’s Longest Silence
Five Minutes After Our Marriage Ended, Carter Said Something That Made Leaving With Our Daughters the Only Choice
Part 21 of 35
