"Yes," Victoria said at once. "Yes, of course. I will call the lab today. Hannah, thank you. I know this is not easy."
"It is not easy," Hannah said. "But I found things in that box, and I cannot pretend I did not see them. I need to know what is true."
"I understand," Victoria said. "I will make the arrangements and call you back with a time. And Hannah, you set the pace. If you need to stop, we stop."
Hannah hung up and kept driving. She felt brave and terrified at once.
The lab was quiet and bright. Dr. Marcus Hale met them at the front desk, a calm man in his fifties with gray at his temples.
"Good morning," he said, shaking Hannah's hand. "Thank you for coming in. I know this kind of appointment carries a lot of weight."
"That is one way to put it," Hannah said.
Victoria laughed nervously. "I am sorry. I am talking too much already, am I not? I was up half the night reading about cheek swabs."
"You are doing fine," Dr. Hale said gently. "Would you both like to sit down while I explain how this works?"
Hannah sat. Victoria sat beside her, smoothing her coat. "I brought water," Victoria said. "Do you need water, Hannah?"
"I am all right," Hannah said.
"Clara told me to bring water," Victoria went on. "She said, take water, take tissues, take your time."
"You are doing fine," Hannah said, and she was surprised to find that she meant it. Seeing Victoria nervous made her feel less alone in the room.
Dr. Hale opened a small kit on the desk. "The process is simple," he said. "I will take a cheek swab from each of you. Then the samples go to the laboratory for analysis. The result will tell us whether you share a parent and child relationship."
"How long?" Hannah asked.
"Three days," Dr. Hale said. "I will call you as soon as the results are ready."
Hannah nodded. "What if it says no?"
"Then it says no," Dr. Hale said. "And you will have an answer, even if it is not the answer you expected."
"What if it says yes?" Hannah asked. Her voice dropped. "What if it says yes, and everything I thought I knew about my life was wrong?"
Victoria reached across the space between their chairs, then stopped, her hand hovering, as if she was afraid to take too much. "Hannah," she said softly, "either way, you will not lose a family."
Hannah looked at her. "How can you say that? If it says yes, I lose the family I grew up with. If it says no, I lose the idea that maybe I belong somewhere else. Either way something breaks."
"No," Victoria said. "Your parents in Portland raised you. They loved you. A test result cannot undo twenty-five years of that. And if the result says yes, it does not mean I will come in and take your life apart. It means we will have a truth to stand on."
Hannah swallowed hard. "You make it sound simple."
"It is not simple," Victoria said. "But it is true."
Dr. Hale held up two small swabs. "Are you both ready?"
Hannah nodded. "I am ready."
He swabbed the inside of her cheek first, then sealed the sample and labeled it. Then he did the same for Victoria.
On the way out, Victoria walked beside her through the parking lot. "Thank you," she said. "For trusting me enough to do this."
The three days of waiting felt longer than any three days Hannah had ever lived through. She went back to work because she did not know what else to do with her hands. Molly found her in the break room on the first day, staring at her phone.
"Did you do it?" Molly asked.
"Yes," Hannah said. "The test. We did it yesterday."
"And?" Molly said.
"And now we wait three days," Hannah said.
"Hey," Molly said, sitting down beside her. "You are not an idiot. You are a person whose whole life just got turned upside down."
Hannah laughed, a real laugh this time. "I do not want to cry. I just want to know."
"I know," Molly said. "Whatever it says, you are still you. You are still Hannah. Nobody gets to take that away, not a lab, not a test, not anybody."
On the second day, Nate found her by the back door during a quiet stretch. He held out a cup of coffee without being asked.
"What are you most afraid of?" Nate asked.
Hannah thought about it. "I am afraid of the answer. Both answers. If it says no, then I go back to Portland and pretend this never happened, and I will always wonder. If it says yes, then my whole story changes."
Nate nodded slowly. "You do what you have always done. You take it one day at a time."
On the third day, Hannah stayed home. She cleaned her small apartment twice. She made tea and forgot to drink it. She looked at her right wrist, at the small star on her skin.
Late in the afternoon, her phone rang. She saw the lab's number on the screen, and her heart stopped.
"Hannah Brooks," she said, her voice barely steady.
"Hello, Hannah," Dr. Hale said. "I have your results. They are in."