My mother’s face softened.
“Yes.”
“You cannot know that.”
“I watched him try not to.”
The answer hurt more than I expected.
She sat beside the bed.
“Richard was angry when Samuel first approached him. He believed we had information about his birth that we were withholding. Samuel offered to share everything he knew if Richard helped protect you.”
“From whom?”
“The people connected to the trial.”
“Why would they care about us after so many years?”
“Because Samuel believed Hayes Technologies held something they wanted.”
I thought of my father’s sealed file.
“The company?”
“Not the company itself. A research archive.”
“What archive?”
“Samuel’s original cofounder, Evelyn Bennett, had worked with the biotechnology company. Before she disappeared, she gave him encrypted records.”
Clara.
My family helped build Hayes Technologies.
Not simply the technology company, then.
The hidden research had begun earlier.
“Was Evelyn Clara’s mother?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Possibly her grandmother.”
“Why did Father keep the records?”
“He said they proved children had been created using genetic material from people who never consented to be donors.”
The words chilled me.
“Was my biological father one of them?”
“He may have been.”
“Who?”
“Samuel never told me.”
“Why?”
“He believed knowing would place you at greater risk.”
I looked away.
All my life, my father had taught me that information was freedom. Yet he had hidden the one truth that defined my beginning.
“He had no right.”
“No,” my mother said quietly. “He didn’t.”
Her agreement surprised me.
“I was angry with him too,” she continued. “We fought for years. I wanted to tell you when you turned eighteen. Samuel insisted the danger had passed, then changed his mind whenever something unusual happened.”
“What unusual things?”
