Chapter 5: Ninety-Nine Point Nine Nine
The envelope came on a Tuesday, thin and ordinary. Wren stood in the apartment's kitchen and slid her thumb under the flap. The letterhead said Lakeview Genetic Diagnostics. Her eyes went straight to the number.
Probability of maternity: 99.99%.
She read it three times. The words didn't change. Celia Ward was her biological mother.
"Wren?" Rosa's voice came from behind her. Her roommate had drifted in from the living room and was reading over her shoulder. "Is that what I think it is?"
"Probability of maternity: 99.99%." Wren's voice sounded like it belonged to someone else. "It's certain."
Rosa put a hand on her shoulder. "What do you want to do?"
Wren folded the letter. "I need to go see my parents."
"Now? It's almost eight."
"Now."
"Do you want me to come?"
"No." Wren shook her head. "I need to do this alone."
Rosa nodded. "Call me after. Any time. Even if it's three in the morning."
Wren drove through October rain to the bungalow in Portage Park where she had grown up, the letter riding on the passenger seat like a bomb. She parked at the curb and sat for a minute, staring at the porch light her father always left on for her.
Maeve opened the door before she knocked. "Wren? Baby, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong." Wren stepped inside and hugged her, breathing in the smell of the kitchen, onions and laundry soap. "Can you get Dad? I need to talk to you both."
Patrick came in from the living room with the remote still in his hand. "Everything okay, kiddo?"
"Come sit." Wren led them to the kitchen table and set the letter down between them. "I took a DNA test. A woman asked me to. Her name is Celia Ward."
Maeve's face went white. "What kind of woman?"
"She owns a gallery downtown. She thinks I might be the daughter she was told died as a newborn. In March of 2001."
The refrigerator hummed. Patrick set the remote down very carefully. "Maeve."
"No." Maeve's voice cracked. "Patrick, we promised."
"She's twenty-five years old," Patrick said quietly. "And she already knows."
Maeve pressed both hands to her mouth. "We were told the birth mother was a young woman who died in childbirth. That's what the attorney said gently."
"Howard Bell," Wren said. "The attorney. He's dead now, right?"
Patrick nodded. "Private arrangement. It wasn't like the agencies, with the waiting lists. Bell called us in January of 2001 and said a baby girl needed a home. We'd been on his list for years, Wren. Years."
"We sold the car," Maeve whispered. "The good car. To pay his fee. We didn't care. We didn't ask enough questions. We were so afraid if we asked too many, it would all fall apart, and we'd lose you before we ever had you."
Wren's throat ached. "You kept records?"
"Sealed records." Patrick's voice was steady, but his hands were clasped so tight his knuckles were white. "Bell gave us an envelope. He said it was for you, for when you were ready. We've kept it in the safe deposit box all this time. We never opened it. It wasn't ours to open."
Maeve grabbed Wren's hand. "Baby, listen to me. Everything that man told us, we believed because we needed to believe it. A young mother died. Nobody was coming back for you. We thought we were saving you and saving ourselves at the same time, and we never once, not one day in twenty-five years, ever thought of you as anything but ours."
"I know." Wren's eyes burned. "I know, Mom."
"But if this woman is telling the truth," Maeve said, her voice breaking, "then she was lied to. She was told you died. Somebody stole her baby and gave you to us, and we never knew, Wren, I swear to God we never knew." She was sobbing now. "Are we going to lose you? Is she going to take you away from us?"
Patrick put his arm around his wife's shoulders. He looked at Wren, and his eyes were wet too, though his voice stayed level. "We won't fight her, if that's what you're asking. If she's your mother and she wants to know you, we won't stand in the way. But I need you to know something." He paused. "You were the best thing that ever happened to this house. The best thing. And nothing on that paper changes that."
Wren took both their hands, her mother's trembling, her father's rough and warm. "Listen to me. You are my parents. Do you hear me? You are my parents. You raised me. You sat up with me when I had the flu. You taught me to ride a bike. No letter, no test, no gallery owner changes that. That doesn't change."
"She might want," Maeve started, and couldn't finish.
"I don't care what she wants." Wren squeezed their hands harder. "I'm telling you what I want. I want my mom who burns the garlic bread every Thanksgiving and my dad who leaves the porch light on. I'm not going anywhere. You're not losing me. You couldn't lose me if you tried."
Maeve made a sound that was half laugh, half sob, and pulled Wren into her arms, and then Patrick's arms were around them both, and they stood there in the kitchen holding on to each other like the floor was moving.
When they finally let go, Maeve wiped her face with the back of her hand and walked to the hallway. She came back carrying a plain manila envelope, yellowed at the edges, sealed with tape gone brown with age. She pressed it into Wren's hands.
"We kept it for when you were ready," she said softly. "Howard Bell's envelope. We never opened it. Whatever's inside, baby, it's yours."
Wren held the envelope. It was light, almost weightless, and it felt like the heaviest thing she had ever carried. She did not open it yet. Not tonight.