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Rebecca

It was less than a year ago that I realized my husband had betrayed me in the worst possible way.

He never thought I would find out. What kind of sick son of a bitch keeps that sort of secret from his wife? One who loves control and power, that’s who. One who has lost both of those things and knows it.

I’ll back up a little. There’s a whole universe in which I might never have found out what he had done—had been doing for over a decade.

It’s maybe a little ironic that I learned about it because of my influencing job, because I’ve been desperate to keep us all afloat since he lost so much of his family’s money.

About a year or so ago, I got a big sponsorship from Genealogy Genius, one of those DNA testing kits that have been all the rage for a few years, the kind that promise to tell you all sorts of personalized genetic insights like whether you have celiac disease or type two diabetes or if cilantro tastes like soap and mosquitoes like to bite you.

Genealogy Genius could also show you where your ancestors likely came from and maybe match you with relatives you didn’t know you had.

The deal was a big one and I had to promise to test my entire family.

I didn’t like that. I’m protective of my children and their identities.

I said no at first and then they doubled the price tag.

We needed the cash to keep things going.

I figured maybe I would do one test with just me and maybe Alice and it would be up to me what information I would reveal to my followers.

I could always make something up. No one needed any of our real data.

Besides, who knew what the tests would turn up.

Maybe I’d finally learn something about my long-lost father that my mother never spoke about.

To fulfill my deal, I had to at least send the tests back to the lab. Alice and I both spit into a little test tube and swabbed our cheeks with giant Q-tips. I still wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t tested her. I never would have known what Gray had done.

My phone pinged with a text when the results came in.

First, I scrolled through the ancestry overview.

Irish, German, Dutch, Polish, 2 whole percent of Neanderthal DNA!

Then the health traits. Nothing that surprising.

My finger wavered over the button that would list potential DNA relatives.

I understood that it would only list relatives who had also done this particular testing kit, but it was a massive company with reach all over the world.

It wasn’t crazy to think that my own missing father, or someone related to him, could have spit into a tube to unlock their genetic mysteries for $99.

I clicked on my genetic relatives first. A handful of second and third cousins with last names I recognized from my mom’s side of the family.

They shared approximately 3.3 percent and 2.

5 percent of my DNA. No surprises. No long-lost dad and brothers and sisters.

I allowed myself a brief moment to feel the disappointment I hadn’t been expecting. Then I clicked through Alice’s results.

Alice’s ancestors were mostly the same. She was a pan-European mutt. No weird genetic variants that could predispose her to rare cancers. I almost didn’t scroll through the relatives’ DNA section. What could it possibly tell me that I didn’t already know?

Turns out it would shatter my entire world.

My child, my little Alice, had relatives listed in the company’s database who didn’t make any sense, namely Marsden Greer’s children.

His wife, Veronica, had gotten the same sponsorship deal from the testing company so she had also tested her kids at the same time.

Alice’s test claimed that Marsden’s kids were directly related to my child. They shared 25 precent of their DNA.

It wasn’t possible. The lab must have gotten something messed up. All of us influencers were probably being tested at the same time and they mixed up someone’s spit. It was probably bogus. Still, the chance that it wasn’t clawed at my brain like a wild animal.

I needed to know more. First, I made sure that Alice’s test wouldn’t be made public like Veronica’s kids’ results were.

I didn’t want Veronica or Marsden to see what I saw when I logged onto that website.

Then I tested Willow and waited two agonizing weeks for the results, the whole time questioning everything I thought I knew about my world. Same thing. Same half-siblings.

As I stared at the cheerful web page that identified my children’s DNA connections, the room seemed to collapse inward. My thoughts spiraled, savage and unrelenting. I ignored James’s cries when he woke from his nap as I tried to make my brain understand how this was possible.

The first thought that flitted through my head was that this had something to do with Gray’s dad.

He had practically raised Marsden, after all.

Maybe he did it for selfish reasons. Maybe years ago he’d had an affair with Marsden’s mom and they all kept it a secret.

I had lived out in the desert long enough to know that even though everyone projects an absurd amount of piety, there is plenty of scandal happening behind closed doors.

Gray’s dad must have had an affair with Marsden’s mom. But that would make our children cousins, not siblings. The math didn’t work.

I tested the other kids. The same connections appeared. It soon became clear to me that there was only one explanation for it.

Marsden Greer was their father.

Anxiety fed on my flesh. None of it made sense. I thought back to all those years of fertility treatments, the half dozen doctors I visited who couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Was it polyps? No. Something wrong with my ovaries? Nope. Hormonal imbalance? Uterine scarring? Nope. Nope.

“Maybe we should check your husband?” one of them finally said. But Gray would have none of that. He was fine. He was virile.

He wouldn’t allow it, and because he paid for all the tests and treatments out of pocket, I let him make those decisions.

I was desperate to keep going and I began to believe him that the problem truly was all the stress I was under at work at the bakery.

When we moved, I let him choose our new doctor, Dr. Carmichael.

He’d been his own mom’s doctor, had even delivered him and his siblings along with the midwife.

Dr. Carmichael was also a powerful leader in the church. I trusted him. I respected him.

Confused and furious after receiving all the test results, I became a madwoman, desperate for more information to prove all of it wrong. At first, I wanted to call Dr. Carmichael, but something told me not to. Something told me to figure this out for myself.

I found a way to break into Gray’s email. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I’d expected it would be. His password was my birthday written out in long form. Going back through years and years of messages, I finally found what I was looking for.

Gray was infertile. He had been shooting blanks all those years.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with me.

Gray had a genetic condition that rendered him completely infertile.

He’d gotten the sperm testing after all and kept it from me.

There was an email where Dr. Carmichael suggested a sperm donor, at which Gray balked.

A stranger contributing half of his children’s DNA?

Absolutely not. Carmichael suggested that someone close to Gray could be an option.

His brother. He even suggested Gray’s own ailing father.

I threw up a little in my mouth when I read that email.

Gray’s dad fathering his own grandchildren!

Who the hell did these men think they were, playing God, having all these conversations behind my back as if I didn’t matter, as if I didn’t even exist?

But no. That was wrong. I existed as the vessel to carry these children.

And after that it was my job and duty to raise them and keep them safe.

But having any authority over how they lived their lives or who they became?

That was well outside my swim lane. The emails made it clear that I didn’t need to know anything about what they were doing.

Dr. Carmichael assured Gray there was a way he could mix another man’s sperm with his own in a centrifuge and that the healthy sperm could help Gray’s.

I screamed then. I covered my face with my pillow and screamed for another hour.

It was bullshit pseudoscience and a massive lie designed to make Gray feel like less of a failure.