Joyce lied to Daniel for the DNA sample. It was the smallest lie she had told the Adebayo family, and somehow it felt the worst.
She met him at a cafe near his office and placed a genealogy kit on the table.
"A research project?" he asked.
"Family migration patterns."
Daniel looked at the swab. "You want my saliva for history?"
"Basically."
"This is how horror films begin."
Joyce laughed because he did.
"You are very suspicious for someone whose mother gives strangers your childhood photographs."
"My mother believes privacy is a Western conspiracy."
He completed the swab, sealed it and handed it back.
"If you clone me, make the second one richer."
"I'll keep that in mind."
He left smiling.
Joyce sat alone with the sample in her bag and felt sick. Three days later, the laboratory result arrived.
Probability of biological paternity: 99.98%.
Michael Okafor was Daniel's father.
Joyce read the report once.
Then again.
She had imagined satisfaction. Perhaps triumph. Instead she saw Daniel joking over coffee and David standing beneath an awning in the rain.
The report was one page. Joyce had spent five years wanting proof; now that she had it, all she could see was who the page could cut.
She called Grace first.
Her mother cried without making a sound.
"We have to tell him," Grace said.
"Not yet. I want copies in three places first, and I want Michael prepared for the possibility Daniel wants nothing to do with him."
"And David?"
Joyce looked at his name in her recent calls.
"I don't know how to tell him."
Grace's voice became quiet. "That is different from not knowing whether to tell him." Joyce knew exactly what her mother meant. The investigation could no longer be separated cleanly from the man she had involved in it.
After ending the call, she phoned Michael.
"The result is positive," Joyce said.
Silence.
"Michael?"
A sound came through the phone - half sob, half laugh.
"He's mine?"
"Biologically, yes."
"Amara was telling the truth."
"About what?"
"That she was afraid. I told her she worried too much."
He began to cry.
Joyce stayed on the phone until he could speak again.
Only after the call ended did she look at the folder on the table and think about David. She had planned to tell him after speaking to Daniel and Victoria in a controlled setting. She had prepared for anger, denial and lawyers. None of those plans included David discovering the evidence while still believing their relationship had begun by accident.
That evening David arrived at her apartment unannounced. She knew immediately something was wrong.
"You've been avoiding me," he said.
"I've been working."
"On my family?"
Her heart stopped.
"What does that mean?"
"Victoria says you followed her."
Joyce closed the door slowly. "Your wife says a lot of things about me."
"Did you?"
She did not answer quickly enough. David laughed once, without humour. "Unbelievable."
"Let me explain."
"That sentence is becoming very popular in my house."
He moved farther into the room. The folder lay open on the dining table.
Joyce saw it at the same moment he did.
"David, wait."
He picked up the first page.
A photograph of Amara.
A copy of Daniel's clinic record.
Michael's photograph.
Then the DNA report.
David read the heading twice.
His face emptied.
"What is this?"
Joyce walked toward him. "Please sit down."
"Why is my son's name on a paternity report with another man's?"
The pain in his voice stopped her. There was no gentle road left.
"Daniel was stolen as a newborn."
David stared at her.
"Your wife did not give birth to him. A midwife arranged the child for her. His biological mother was Amara Okafor. She was killed when she tried to get him back."
David shook his head slowly.
"No."
"My mother witnessed the killing."
"No."
"The DNA confirms Michael Okafor is Daniel's biological father."
David looked at the report again as though the numbers might rearrange themselves.
"Victoria was pregnant."
"She faked it."
He sank into a chair.
Joyce had never seen a person lose twenty-two years in seconds.
"He is not my son," David said.
"He is your son."
His head snapped up. "Don't do that. Don't give me some beautiful sentence to make this easier. Is Daniel biologically mine?"
Joyce swallowed. "No."
David's eyes filled, and he seemed furious with them for it.
Then he looked at her.
"How long have you known?"
Joyce stopped breathing.
The second betrayal had arrived.