Priscilla called me the night before the results were to be read. She was weeping. She begged me to stop it — not for Carson’s sake, she said, but because she was terrified of what it would do to him to learn the truth this way, in front of everyone.
“I know what he did to you, Harper,” she said. “I know he doesn’t deserve your protection. But he’s my son. And this is my sin, not his. He’s going to pay for a lie I told before he was born.”
I felt for her. I did. Priscilla had been trapped by the same family that trapped me, thirty-eight years earlier, with far fewer options and far less mercy.
“Priscilla,” I said gently. “I didn’t start this. Carson did, at the foot of my hospital bed, thirty minutes after I gave birth to his daughter. He’s the one who turned a baby into a question of bl*od. He’s the one who demanded the test.” I paused. “I’m just the only person in this family who isn’t afraid of the answer.”
