“Of course not, dear,” she said, though her face remained completely smooth. “But public perception is a difficult thing to manage once it starts to drift.”
She set the French press down on the counter with a soft click. “I only want what is best for my grandson, dear.”
I looked down at the dark coffee in my cup, realizing she had already rehearsed this conversation.
“Sam is Dave’s son,” I said, my voice flat.
“We all want to believe what is comfortable,” she said.
She carried her cup toward the breakfast nook, leaving me standing by the stove.
The dining room at the country club was crowded with the usual Tuesday lunch crowd when we arrived at noon. Patricia had invited Eleanor and Margaret, two of her oldest friends from the garden club, to join us at the corner table.
Margaret was talking about her granddaughter’s violin recital when Patricia cleared her throat and leaned forward.
“Clara was just telling me about her college days,” Patricia said, her voice carrying easily over the clatter of silver salad forks.
I looked up from my plate, my fork hovering. “I only mentioned that I missed the campus library in the fall.”
“You went to state, didn’t you, Clara?” Eleanor asked, adjusting her pearl necklace.
“Yes, I graduated in nineteen ninety-eight,” I said, trying to keep the tone light.
“It must have been such an exciting time,” Patricia said, tapping her index finger on the edge of the mahogany table. “All those new people. You had a very large circle of male friends back then, didn’t you?”
The table went quiet for a second, Margaret’s fork pausing in mid-air.
“I had classmates, Patricia,” I said. “We studied together.”
“And how long did you say you kept in touch with them after graduation?” Patricia asked, her eyes bright. “The ones from the biology department, specifically.”
“I was an accounting major,” I said, my throat feeling dry. “I didn’t know anyone in the biology department.”
“Oh, I thought you spent a great deal of time in the science labs during your senior year,” Patricia said, her smile polite and empty. “Perhaps I misremembered the details you told Dave.”
Eleanor looked down at her plate, suddenly very interested in her salad.
“I didn’t spend any time there,” I said, my voice dropping.
“It is always best to be precise about these things,” Patricia said, waving her hand to summon the waiter for more iced tea. “Otherwise, people might get the wrong impression about how you met your husband.”
I forced myself to swallow a bite of bread, though it felt like ash in my mouth.
“Dave and I met at a bookstore,” I said, looking directly at her.
“Of course,” Patricia said, her eyes never leaving mine. “But bookstores are public places, aren’t they?”
The waiter arrived with the tea, and the conversation shifted to the upcoming charity bazaar.
The Volvo was idling in the driveway of the big Tudor house when we got home, the heater blowing warm air against my knees. Dave was staring straight through the windshield at the closed garage door.
“She did it in front of Eleanor and Margaret,” I said, my knuckles white on my purse strap. “She brought up my college years like she was trying to prove I was running around on you.”
Dave ran his hand through his blond hair, his shoulders slumping. “She’s just getting older, Clara. She worries about everything. You know how she is about the family name.”
“This isn’t about her being old,” I said. “This is about her trying to make me look like a liar in front of her friends.”
“She doesn’t mean it that way,” Dave said, his voice soft and placating. “She’s just anxious. With Dad being sick, everything feels high-stakes to her right now.”
“She asked me about biological traits in front of people, Dave. She practically accused me of lying about who Sam’s father is.”
Dave turned the key in the ignition, shutting off the engine, but he didn’t move to open his door.
“She’s just looking for reassurance,” he said, staring at the dashboard. “She wants to make sure everything is solid before the estate papers are finalized.”
“The estate papers have nothing to do with my son’s hair,” I said. “He is your son.”
“I know that, Clara,” he said, but he wouldn’t look at me.
“Then why aren’t you saying anything to her?” I asked. “Why are you letting her drag my reputation through the mud?”
Dave gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles turning pink in the dim light. “Because she’s my mother, Clara. I can’t just call her a liar.”
“Even when she’s calling me one?” I asked.
He did not answer. He just sat there in the fading autumn light, the car turning cold around us.
“We need to go inside,” he said finally.
I opened my door, the cold wind hitting my face, and stepped out onto the asphalt.
The kitchen smelled of garlic and olive oil as the pasta boiled on the stove. I stood by the counter, chopping parsley with a heavy chef’s knife, the rhythm of the blade hitting the wooden board loud in the small room.
Dave was leaning against the refrigerator, holding a head of broccoli he had forgotten to wash.
“She called me this afternoon after we got home,” he said quietly.
I stopped chopping, the knife resting against the board. “What did she want this time?”
“She was talking about Robert’s medical history again,” Dave said. “She says we need to be absolutely certain of everything before the fifteenth of December.”
“We are certain,” I said. “We have the birth certificate. We have five years of raising our boy.”
Dave set the broccoli on the counter and took a step toward me. “She thinks we should do a test.”
My hand tightened on the handle of the knife. “A test.”
“A DNA test,” Dave said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Just to put her mind at ease. She said it would settle everything once and for all.”
“And what did you say to her, Dave?” I asked, looking him directly in the eyes.
He ran his hand through his blond hair again, his eyes darting toward the hallway where Sam was playing in the living room.
“I told her I’d think about it,” he said.
The knife slipped slightly on the cutting board, nicking the edge of my thumb, but I didn’t look down.
“You told her you would think about it,” I repeated.
“She was very upset, Clara,” he said, taking another step closer. “She said if you have nothing to hide, a simple test should not frighten you.”
The words felt like a physical weight landing in the center of the kitchen.
“You should have told her no immediately,” I said, my voice shaking. “You should have told her that questioning our marriage is where the conversation ends.”
“I couldn’t do that to her,” Dave said. “Not with Dad’s heart the way it is. She’s under so much pressure.”
“And what about the pressure on me?” I asked.
He reached out to touch my shoulder, but I stepped back, my spine hitting the cold edge of the counter.
I looked at him, really looked at him, and realized that he had already let his mother win this round.
“It’s just a cheek swab, Clara,” he said softly. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
I picked up an empty water glass from the dish rack, my fingers cold against the glass.
I leaned against the kitchen counter, holding the empty glass, and did not say another word.
The paper cup of vending machine coffee was almost too hot to hold, but I kept my fingers pressed against the thin cardboard to keep them from shaking. Helen, my older sister, blew on her plastic lid before taking a slow, cautious sip. We sat on the orange vinyl chairs near the clinic exit, watching the autumn rain grease the glass doors that led out to the Oakhaven medical complex.
Helen set her cup on the small plastic table between us, the surface sticky from some long-forgotten spill.
“A standard paternity test only answers one question, Clara,” Helen said, turning her head to look at me.
“I only need to answer one question,” I said. I twisted my silver wedding band twice, feeling the cold metal press into the skin of my ring finger. “Patricia wants to know if Sam is Dave’s. She wants to prove he isn’t, so she can convince Robert to leave us out of the inheritance.”
Helen shook her head, her short graying curls shifting against her coat collar. “If you only test Sam and Dave, you are playing her game on her terms. You are defending yourself against a lie she made up because she does not like the shape of your son’s nose.”
“It is the only way she will let the estate rest,” I said.
“No,” Helen said, leaning closer so her voice would not carry to the receptionist’s desk. “You buy the multi-generation kit. It tests the whole line, from the grandparents down. If she wants truth, give her the entire picture.”
I looked down at the dark, watery coffee in my lap, my thumb tracing the rim of the cup. The idea of testing Robert and Patricia alongside Dave and Sam made my chest feel tight, but it also offered a cold kind of leverage.
“Does it cost more?” I asked.