Chapter 7 - The Lab Report
At 4:15 PM on Tuesday, six days after we sent the certified swabs to Seattle, an email notification chimed on my phone.
Alliance Genomics: Your certified laboratory report is now available for download.
Elias was underneath a 2018 Chevy Silverado on the hydraulic lift in his shop when I pulled my car into the service bay. The garage smelled of hot brake metal, solvent, and tire rubber. The air tools were buzzing in the background, where his young apprentice was mounting winter studs onto steel rims.
When Elias saw my car, he dropped his wrench onto the tool cart with a sharp metallic clatter. He wiped his hands on a blue shop rag, said something to his apprentice, and walked straight over to the passenger side of my station wagon.
He didn't say a word. He opened the door, slid onto the vinyl seat, and looked at the phone in my hand.
“It’s here?” he asked.
“It’s in the portal,” I said.
His throat moved as he swallowed hard. His face was smudged with black grease across the bridge of his nose, and his hair was flattened from his baseball cap. He looked tired—not the hollow, hunted exhaustion of six months ago, but the deep, physical fatigue of an honest man who had worked twelve hours on his feet.
“Do you want me to open it?” I asked gently.
Elias reached out, his thick, grease-stained thumb hovering over the screen. “We open it together.”
He pressed the blue Download PDF button.
The screen flashed white for a second as the high-resolution document rendered. The state seal of Washington appeared at the top, followed by the accreditation numbers for the American Association of Blood Banks.
Beneath the legal disclaimers were three columns of genetic markers: Locus, Child (Ren Miller), Alleged Father (Elias Miller).
Sixteen genetic markers.
D3S1358: 15, 16 — 15, 16.
vWA: 17, 18 — 17, 18.
FGA: 21, 24 — 21, 24.
D8S1179: 13, 14 — 13, 14.
Every single locus was an identical, uninterrupted match.
At the bottom of the second page, enclosed in a bold black box, was the summary conclusion:
PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.9998%
The alleged father, Elias Miller, cannot be excluded as the biological father of the child, Ren Miller. Based on the genetic testing results, the probability of paternity is greater than 99.999%, establishing biological parentage to an absolute degree of scientific certainty.
Elias stared at the black box.
He didn't speak. He didn't yell. He laid his forehead against the dashboard of our station wagon, his broad shoulders hitching once, twice, as a single, ragged breath tore through his lungs.
I leaned across the console, wrapping both arms around his neck, burying my face in the collar of his grease-stained work shirt.
“She’s yours, Elias,” I whispered into his skin. “She was always yours.”
“I know,” he choked out, his voice muffled against the vinyl dashboard. “I knew the second I held her in the delivery room, Nina. God help me, I knew it. And I let that woman make me feel like a stranger in my own house.”
He sat up, wiping his eyes with the rough sleeve of his fleece, not caring that he was leaving streaks of black engine soot across his forehead. He took the phone from my hand, looked at the 99.9998% figure one more time, and then looked at me.
“Print four copies,” Elias said. His voice was suddenly clear, resonant, and steady.
“Four?”
“One for Howard Cross,” Elias said. “One for my mother’s refrigerator. One for our safe.”
“And the fourth?” I asked.
May you like
A slow, cold smile touched the corners of my husband’s mouth—the smile of a man who has finally finished lining up the sights on a target that had been shooting at him from the dark.
“The fourth is for the front window of Marlo’s real estate office on Main Street,” Elias said. “Right next to her Realtor of the Year plaque.”