Chapter 6 - Northstar’s Report Was Never Meant For Mariana
With legal guidance and Chloe’s involvement, Mariana requested records
from Northstar Genomics.
The company had closed.
Its files had been transferred to a medical-record custodian.
Obtaining them took time.
Richard’s attorney objected to Mariana characterizing the old test
before seeing the records.
For once, Mariana agreed.
She wanted evidence.
The report arrived six days later.
Chloe had been tested at age twelve.
The panel included the Mercer family mutation.
The result was negative.
Mariana read it three times.
Chloe had not inherited that known mutation.
Relief should have ended the question.
Instead Mariana noticed another page.
PATERNITY CONSISTENCY FLAG — REFER TO ORDERING PHYSICIAN.
Her hands began shaking.
The report did not state that Richard was not Chloe’s father.
It indicated that genetic markers in the submitted paternal reference
sample were inconsistent with the expected biological relationship.
Mariana felt the room tilt.
She had never been unfaithful to Richard.
Never.
She called the record custodian.
The paternal sample had been submitted under Richard’s name.
The ordering physician was Dr. Samuel Mercer.
Richard’s father.
Samuel had died four years earlier.
Mariana showed the report to Phoebe.
Phoebe warned her not to jump to conclusions.
A mislabeled sample, laboratory issue, donor sample, or other
explanation was possible.
Mariana agreed.
But Richard had seen the report.
His signature appeared on the acknowledgment page.
Three years ago, Richard learned a private genetic test raised a
question about Chloe’s biological relationship to him.
He never told Mariana.
He never pursued a transparent clinical explanation.
Instead, he buried the test.
When Chloe later developed abdominal symptoms, he tried to avoid
hospitals.
The pattern suddenly made terrible sense.
Richard was not necessarily hiding cancer.
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He was hiding the possibility that a hospital investigation might reopen
a paternity question he had carried alone for years.
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