When it was my turn, my hands were slick with sweat. Dr. Morrison swabbed the inside of my cheek with clinical precision.
“Nervous?” she asked, her voice neutral.
“I’ve spent half my life being told I don’t belong here,” I said. “Wouldn’t you be?”
“The DNA doesn’t care about what people say,” she replied. “The markers are either there, or they aren’t. Results in five to seven days.”
I spent those days in a Courtyard Marriott. I couldn’t go back to my apartment, and I couldn’t stomach staying in the house of shadows. The funeral took place that Thursday at St. Paul’s Church. It was a grand, hollow affair. Four hundred people in black, mourning a man they only knew through balance sheets.
I was ushered to Section C, back row, seated behind distant cousins and business partners who didn’t even know my father’s middle name. The program was a masterpiece of exclusion: Wife: Diane Carmichael. Son: Preston Carmichael. Other Relatives: Elena Carmichael.
Diane gave a eulogy that was more of a performance than a farewell. She spoke of “William’s greatest pride, his son Preston.” She never uttered my name. Not once.
After the service, as the elite moved toward the reception for champagne and shrimp cocktails, I stood alone by the stone archway of the church. A hand touched my arm.
It was Rosa Martinez, the housekeeper who had been with my father since before I was born. She looked aged, her eyes clouded with tears and something else—fear.
“Miss Elena,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the wind. She pressed a heavy, iron key into my palm. “Third floor study. The locked one. Your father… he wanted you to see it before the lawyers finish. He told me to wait until the end.”
“What is it, Rosa?”
