Daniel arrived irritated.
"You said urgent. Do you know what traffic is like?"
Then he saw Victoria crying.
David stood by the dining table. Joyce and Grace were not there yet. He had sent one message to Joyce after calling Daniel.
Come. Bring everything.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked.
David looked at Victoria.
"Tell him."
She stared at the report.
"David, please."
"Tell him."
The bell rang.
Joyce entered with Grace.
Victoria saw the older woman and gripped the back of a chair. Twenty-two years disappeared from her face.
"You," she whispered.
Grace looked frightened, but she did not look away.
"Yes. Me."
Daniel glanced between them. "Can somebody tell me what is going on?" He picked up the DNA report himself.
Read slowly.
Then laughed, confused.
"What is this?"
No one answered.
"Dad?"
David's face broke at the word.
Daniel looked at Victoria.
"Mum?"
Victoria began to cry harder.
"Daniel, whatever you hear, you are my son."
His expression changed.
"Why would you say it like that?"
"Because I love you."
"Mum. Did you give birth to me?"
Silence.
Daniel stared at her.
"Did you give birth to me?"
Victoria shook her head.
The room seemed to contract around him.
"No?"
"I couldn't have children. Your grandfather had changed the will. I was desperate."
Daniel backed away.
"So you adopted me?"
Victoria opened her mouth.
Joyce watched the moment she considered one last lie.
Grace spoke first.
"No."
Daniel turned toward her.
"Who are you?"
"My name is Grace Williams. I was a nurse at the clinic where you were born."
He looked at Joyce. "Her mother."
Joyce nodded.
Grace's voice shook. "You were taken from your mother after you were born."
Daniel went blank.
He looked at Victoria again.
"You stole me?"
"I did not take you from her myself."
"That is not what I asked."
Victoria collapsed into a chair.
"I paid Mrs. Eze to find a baby. I told myself the mother had agreed. I told myself you needed a home. I told myself many things."
"And my real mother?"
Victoria shut her eyes.
Daniel's voice rose. "Where is she?"
Joyce stepped forward.
"Her name was Amara Okafor."
"Was?"
Joyce wished someone else could say it.
No one did.
"She was killed the day after you were born."
Daniel looked at Victoria.
"You knew?"
"Not before."
"After?"
"Mrs. Eze told me there had been an accident. Later I understood-"
"You understood my mother was dead and you kept me?"
"I loved you!"
"You lied to me!"
Victoria stood and reached for him. Daniel recoiled as if her hand were fire.
"Don't touch me."
"Daniel, please."
"Don't touch me!"
He turned to David.
"Did you know?"
David's voice failed on the first attempt.
"No."
Daniel looked at the report again.
"So you're not my father."
David crossed the space between them.
"I am your father."
"The paper says-"
"I do not care what the paper says."
Daniel's eyes filled.
David's voice broke. "I held you the first day I met you. I taught you to ride a bicycle. I sat outside your room when you had malaria because your mother said I was making you nervous. I nearly fought your school principal when you were thirteen. I am your father. I am just not the man whose blood is in your body."
Daniel looked away.
For one moment grief passed through the room without choosing sides. Daniel wiped his face with both hands.
"I need air."
Victoria moved instinctively. "Daniel-"
He stepped away from her. "Please. Just don't." He walked out through the front door. Nobody followed immediately. David was crying openly now. Grace had begun explaining the clinic records. Joyce stood near the table, hating herself for every piece of paper on it.
Outside, the night air did nothing for Daniel. At work, when a product failed, there was always a version history. Tonight every version of his own life seemed to have been written by someone else.
He caught his reflection in the black window of his car. People had always said he had David's smile; Victoria claimed his stubbornness. Suddenly resemblance felt like another story handed to him in place of truth.
Daniel touched the scar near his eyebrow. David had carried him inside after the bicycle fall that caused it. He remembered his father's shirt against his face and Victoria shouting for antiseptic.
That memory was real.
So was Amara, a mother he had learned about minutes ago and lost twenty-two years earlier.
He almost called Tunde. What came first: Victoria had stolen him, David was still his father except for blood, or Amara had died fighting to keep him?
The phone vibrated.
I knew Amara. I can tell you what really happened. I'm in the silver car across the road. Come alone if you want the truth before they rewrite it.
Daniel stared at the message.
Before they rewrite it.
Everyone inside the house had already admitted to rewriting his life once. Across the road an old woman sat behind the wheel. She lowered the window.
"Daniel?"
He should have gone back inside.
Instead he crossed the road.
Ten minutes later, Victoria's phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
"Hello?"
Mrs. Eze's voice came through softly.
"You should have kept your little family under control."
Victoria went pale.
"Where are you?"
"Ask your son."
David ran outside. Joyce followed.
Daniel's car was still in the driveway. His phone lay near the gate, screen cracked where it had fallen. Victoria's phone remained pressed to her ear.
Mrs. Eze whispered one final sentence.
"Bring me what I ask for, or this family loses its precious heir for real."