Chapter 4 - MARGARET’S VERSION OF MERCY
Margaret eventually gave a deposition in the civil investigation.
The criminal child-restraint case remained separate.
That distinction mattered.
She admitted going to the fertility clinic.
Her explanation:
I was devastated after your miscarriages.
Thomas was devastated.
Michael’s fertility problem made everyone anxious.
She said Dr. Parker told Thomas there might be a way to use a “compatible family donor” if Michael’s sample failed.
I asked:
“Did you tell him to use Dad’s?”
Margaret said:
“I told him blood continuity mattered.”
My stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
“I didn’t want you carrying a stranger’s child.”
“You preferred my father?”
She started crying.
“You weren’t supposed to know.”
That sentence was worse than denial.
I stood up.
My attorney stopped me.
Margaret continued.
“Thomas thought it would still be family.”
I stared.
“Did Dad agree?”
“He agreed to help if needed.”
“Did he know that meant his sperm could be used to impregnate me?”
Silence.
That distinction mattered.
Margaret claimed Thomas believed Dr. Parker would obtain proper consent from Michael and me.
She herself assumed the clinic had.
After Sophie was born, Dr. Parker called Thomas privately.
He told him the “family rescue sample” had been successful.
Thomas panicked.
He told Margaret.
Neither told me.
“Why?”
“Because you were happy.”
I laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“You stole the truth because I was happy?”
“We protected your marriage.”
“Michael raised a child while you knew he might not be her biological father.”
“He loved her.”
“That makes what you did worse, not better.”
Margaret looked down.
Then I asked the question that mattered most.
“Did you know Dad was biologically Sophie’s father for certain?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
“Yes.”
“How strongly?”
She looked at me.
“Strongly.”
“And you still called her a bastard?”
That was the hypocrisy.
Margaret began crying again.
“I was angry at you.”
“For what?”
“You divorced Michael.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“You thought I ruined the marriage Dad’s secret had already corrupted?”
She shook her head.
“You never tried hard enough.”
There it was.
The real motive behind years of cruelty.
Not biology alone.
Control.
Margaret believed my divorce made the family look unstable.
Sophie became the visible symbol of that failure.
Even while Margaret knew Sophie might biologically descend from the very bloodline she worshipped.
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Her ideology had never been logically consistent.
It only needed to justify whoever she wanted to punish.
