Ten Years of False Warmth: My Son Was Never Mine
It stated, in stark black and white, that the son I had raised for a decade was not biologically mine.
But I raised him. He grew up in my arms. So where was my real child?
Honey, what are you still doing in the study so late?
His voice startled me. I quickly closed the document, but not before he saw it.
His face darkened. "So, this is how little you trust me!"
I reopened the paternity test report and demanded to know what it meant.
Instead of answering, he slammed the laptop shut and turned on me, accusing me of violating his privacy.
Watching him walk away, I felt like I was looking at a stranger. After ten years of marriage, this was who he had become.
Calmly, I opened a drawer and tore the tenth-anniversary gift I had prepared for him to shreds.
...
I pulled open the bottom drawer. Inside was a share transfer agreement, already signed by me.
I had planned to give him 15% of the company's shares on our anniversary tomorrow.
But now, that seemed entirely unnecessary.
I took the agreement and ripped it into tiny pieces.
The scraps of paper fell into the trash, mixing with the wrapping paper I'd chosen for his gifts.
Looking at them now, the joy I'd felt while preparing them was gone, replaced by a wave of nausea.
When I returned to the bedroom, Mark was already in bed, acting as if nothing had happened.
I stood in the doorway for a long time, watching the back of his sleeping form, then turned and went to the guest room.
I didn't sleep a wink.
The next morning, Mark's angry voice woke me.
He was standing in the doorway of the guest room, his face a mask of fury.
"Elara, what is the meaning of this? Why are you sleeping in here?"
I sat up and looked at him. I had looked at this face for ten years, but now it felt completely alien.
"I need some space."
He opened his mouth to argue, then just shook his head.
"Fine. Whatever you want."
After Mark left for work, I made breakfast as usual. My son, Leo, sat at the table, drinking his milk.
"Mom, you don't look so good."
I stroked his hair. It was soft and slightly curly, just like Mark's.
For years, everyone had said how much they looked alike.
"Mommy just didn't sleep well. Hurry up and eat, or you'll be late for school."
On the way to drop Leo off, my mind was a million miles away.
At a red light, I turned around, pretending to fix his collar, and plucked a single hair from the back of his head.
"You have a gray hair, sweetie. Let Mommy get it for you."
I tucked the hair into the small notebook I carried with me.
After watching Leo walk into the school, I drove straight to a DNA testing center.
"I need this rushed. What's the fastest you can get the results?"
"Standard is five business days. Rushed is by 4 PM today, but it's triple the price."
"I'll take the rush."
My hand trembled as I handed over the sample.
After they took a swab from my cheek, I sat in the waiting area, watching the clock on the wall tick by, second by agonizing second.
While I waited, I called a private investigator.
"I want you to look into my husband, Mark Turner. Specifically, his movements over the past few months."
At 3:40 PM, my phone rang. The results were in.
I opened the digital report and scrolled straight to the bottom.
"Based on DNA analysis, the probability of a parental relationship between Elara Vance and Leo Turner is 0.0001%."
"Genetic marker analysis does not support Elara Vance as the biological mother of Leo Turner."
Even though I had been preparing myself, the words still made me gasp. I leaned against the wall for support.
Not my son. I had raised a child that wasn't mine for nine years.
So where was my baby?
I immediately drove to the hospital where I had given birth.
I found the obstetrician who had delivered my baby. She was the head of the department now.
I got straight to the point. "Dr. Evans, I need to see my delivery records and hospital file from nine years ago."
Her smile faltered for a second. "It's been a long time. The files have probably been archived."
After some effort, someone from the records room finally brought out a folder.
I opened it and found the records were shockingly brief. Just the admission and discharge dates, the delivery method, and the newborn's weight.
There were no detailed notes on the delivery, no nurse hand-off records, no report from the pediatrician.
"Is this all there is?"
"That's all we have in the system," she said apologetically. "Paper records for maternity cases are typically kept for ten years. Yours is almost at its expiration."
"What about the newborn's footprints? The blood test records?"
She shook her head. "Those would be in the newborn's file, but we couldn't find it."
It was obvious. Something was very wrong here.
An overly simplified medical record, a missing newborn file, and a son who looked just like my husband but wasn't mine.
My phone rang. It was Mark.
"Where are you? I've already picked up Leo."
I had completely forgotten it was past school dismissal time. Thankfully, I had informed the teacher I might be late.
"I'm running some errands. I'll be home soon." I hung up.
After dinner, I claimed to have a headache and went to my room early.
Mark was in the living room, helping Leo with his homework. I could faintly hear their voices.
"Dad, is Mom upset?"
"She's just tired. Finish your homework and get to bed early."
Once they were both asleep, I began to quietly search the house.
The master bedroom, the living room, Leo's roomI looked everywhere.
I found nothing.
Finally, my eyes fell on the computer in the study. The truth had to be in there. Just as I was about to open the file, I heard footsteps outside the door. I quickly closed the document.
When Mark came in, I was tidying the desk.
He glanced at the computer screen, which was back to the desktop wallpapera photo of the three of us at the beach from three years ago.
"Still awake?"
"Just organizing some old files."
As I spoke, I turned off the monitor.
He stood there for a moment, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he just nodded. "Get some rest."
I sat in the dark, listening to his footsteps fade away.
I didn't turn the computer back on that night. My thoughts were a tangled mess.
The next morning, I let Mark take Leo to school.
He gave me a long look but took the car keys. "Okay."
The moment they were gone, I went to the study.
I turned on the computer and typed in the password: our wedding anniversary.
Incorrect.
I tried his birthday. Incorrect.
Our son's birthday. Still incorrect.
I tried the date we first met, his mother's birthday, the day the company was founded.
None of them worked.
The system locked me out for fifteen minutes.
I sat there, staring at the login screen. The computer we had bought together was now locked against me.
That evening, Mark came home from work and said, as he was taking off his jacket, "I have a business trip to Hong Kong tomorrow. I'm not sure how long I'll be."
I brought a dish out from the kitchen. "So sudden. Who are you going with?"
He put his briefcase on the table and turned to me. "It was a last-minute arrangement. Elara, can you just stop?"
I looked at him silently, confused by his overreaction to a simple question. "Stop what?"
"You question everything, you're suspicious of everyone. I'm just going to work."
I turned back to the kitchen to get the rice, my hand trembling slightly. "It was just a casual question."
He didn't say anything else and went straight to the bedroom.
Dinner was quiet. Leo seemed to sense the tension and, for once, didn't complain about his food.
After his shower, Mark picked up his coat from the sofa to hang it up.
A small receipt fell from the pocket and landed at my feet.
After he left the room, I picked it up.
It was a receipt for an expensive bottle of perfume, purchased yesterday afternoon.
I didn't recognize the name of the perfume, but I knew it wasn't for me. In ten years of marriage, Mark had stopped giving me gifts. I used to make excuses for himhe wasn't romantic, he was busy with work, he was a practical man.
Now I realized he wasn't incapable of romance; his romance just wasn't for me.
I noted down the information on the receipt.
The next morning, after Mark had left for the airport, I called the department store. "I need to check on a purchase made with this receipt. Yes, from yesterday afternoon."
"One moment yes, I have it. The purchase was made by a Ms. Millie Chen."
Millie Chen.
The name was familiar. She was Mark's secretary, a divorced woman in her thirties he had hired six months ago.
Driving to the airport, I didn't know what I was hoping to find. Maybe the perfume was a gift for a client. Maybe I was overthinking it.
I waited outside the international departures terminal for half an hour before I saw them.
Mark and Millie.
She was wearing a beige trench coat and pulling a small suitcase, walking beside him.
Mark had a relaxed smile on his face, one I hadn't seen in a very long time.
At the security checkpoint, Millie stopped and naturally reached out to straighten Mark's collar.
He didn't pull away.
He leaned down and whispered something in her ear.
Millie smiled, then stood on her toes and kissed him on the lips.
Mark's hand rested on her waist for a moment before they separated, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
My last shred of denial vanished. So those late nights at the office, those impatient glaresthey all had a reason.
As I watched their intimate exchange, a chilling suspicion began to form in my mind.
The child who wasn't mine could he be connected to this woman?
On the drive back, I called the private investigator. "I need you to look into someone else. Millie Chen. I want to know everything about her, especially if she has any children."
The investigator was fast. The next afternoon, I received the report.
Millie Chen, thirty-two, divorced five years ago. She had a ten-year-old son named Ethan, who attended a primary school on the west side of the city.
The date jumped out at me.
Millie's son was only a week younger than Leo.
For the first time in ten years, I felt a rage so intense it made my blood boil.
I sat on the sofa, the report in my hand. Then, an idea struck me. I ran to the study.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard. Slowly, I typed in Millie Chen's birthday.
The desktop opened. There was only one folder, named "Work Backup."
I clicked on it. Inside were subfolders, organized by year, starting from eleven years ago.
The oldest folder contained scanned photographs.
Mark and Millie in school uniforms, standing under an acacia tree.
A nineteen-year-old Mark was smiling, his arm around Millie's shoulders.
Millie, with her hair in a ponytail, was looking up at him.
The next photo was from college, in the library.
Then a graduation photo, the two of them in caps and gowns, holding hands.
That was the year Mark told me the company was in trouble, and we canceled our anniversary trip.
I closed the folder, a sick feeling rising in my stomach.
Ten years of lies. I looked at the wedding photo of me and Mark on the desktop wallpaper and felt a wave of nausea.
At 3 PM, I drove to the west side of the city.
The primary school was even more run-down than the investigator's report had described. The final bell rang, and children poured out of the school gates.
I sat in my car, my hands gripping the steering wheel.
He walked out alone. No one was there to pick him up. He looked both ways, then started walking slowly down the sidewalk.
I held my breath.
That child. Ethan.
No, that was my son.
The way he walked was a little like mine, slightly pigeon-toed.
When he raised his hand to brush his hair back, I saw a birthmark on his wrist, in the exact same place as mine.
I saw a speck of dust on his eyelashes, his lips were chapped, and the sole of his shoe was coming apart.
His eyes were empty, not like a ten-year-old's should be.
I covered my mouth to stifle a sob.
He walked away and disappeared around a corner.
I slumped over the steering wheel and wept.
For the child walking home alone, for the ten years of a life that had been stolen from me, and for the fool I had been, living in a play orchestrated by someone else.
Then, I wiped my tears and started the car.
At the law firm, I placed a USB drive on the lawyer's desk.
It contained copies of all the photos, the paternity test, the hospital records, the perfume receipt, and the information on Millie and Ethan.
"I want a divorce. I want him to leave with nothing. I want custody of my son. And I want him to pay for what he's done."
Walking out of the law firm, I remembered what Mark had said when he proposed.
"Elara, I will give you a lifetime of security."
It turned out his lifetime was only ten years.
No, maybe not even that long.
I took out my phone and called the second-largest shareholder in the company, an old colleague of my father's. "Mr. Roberts, about the board meeting next week, there's something I'd like to discuss with you first."
Mark had probably forgotten that the company's name was Vance Industries. He was the general manager because I had persuaded my father to give him a chance.
I had built him up. I could also tear him down.
Two weeks after Mark left, I liquidated all my disposable assets.
Every afternoon, I drove to the area around the primary school on the west side.
One day, it was raining. He didn't have an umbrella. He waited under the eaves of a small shop by the school gate for half an hour before finally running home in the rain.
I sat in my car, the rain blurring the windows.
On Friday afternoon, I arrived early.
When I saw Ethanno, my soncome out, I got out of the car and pretended to be a passerby. I dropped a folder in front of him.
He hesitated for a moment, then bent down to help me pick it up.
"Thank you, young man. Hasn't your mother come to get you yet?"
He shook his head. "My mom's working late today."
"How are you getting home?"
"I take the bus."
I took an unopened bottle of water from my bag and handed it to him. "Have some water."
He hesitated, then took it and whispered, "Thank you."
I noticed that he had a habit of pursing his lips when he spoke, just like me.
The shape of his eyes was the same, too. Hooded eyelids, with a slight downward tilt at the outer corners.
"Does your mom work late often?"
He nodded, then shook his head. "Sometimes."
"What about your dad?"
He didn't answer, just looked down at his shoes. The sole of his sneaker was coming apart, and the shoelace on his left foot was broken.
I didn't press him. I took two hundred dollars from my wallet and tucked it into his hand. "Go buy yourself a new pair of shoes."
He took a step back. "No, I can't take this."
"Think of it as a thank you for helping me with my papers."
I put the money in the side pocket of his backpack and walked away.
After a few steps, I glanced back. He was looking after me, a confused expression on his face.
That night, I stood in the doorway of Leo's room.
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