Chapter 12 - THE MARRIAGE THEY DESIGNED
The DNA results confirmed it.
Sylvia had given birth to me thirty-one years earlier under a false name.
I was transferred through Saint Agnes and adopted by the Parker family.
Years later, Sylvia arranged my meeting with Aaron.
She knowingly married two of her biological children.
The fertility treatments used my eggs and donor material selected by Genesis.
Aaron was not the biological father of Lucy, Ella, or the twins I carried.
But the marriage itself had been incestuous by design.
Sylvia believed psychological control worked best when every relationship traced back to her.
She called it restoring the family.
I called it destroying identity.
Aaron claimed he never knew.
Rebecca Mitchell believed him on that point.
Sylvia had kept all her children ignorant of one another.
Dr. Reed was the first daughter.
I was the second.
Aaron was the third.
Rebecca was the fourth.
Each assigned a role.
Doctor.
Mother.
Controller.
Witness.
Sylvia sat behind jailhouse glass while I confronted her.
“Why bring me back?”
“You carried the strongest genetic line.”
“You sold me as a baby.”
“I ensured you were raised well.”
“You married me to my brother.”
“Aaron was never intended to touch you naturally. The pregnancy program was clinical.”
Her answer revealed how completely she had erased personhood.
Marriage.
Sex.
Pregnancy.
Children.
All became instruments.
“You forced me to love someone you designed to control me.”
Sylvia leaned closer.
“And yet you did love him.”
That was the deepest cruelty.
Some moments with Aaron had felt real.
The first dance.
The quiet breakfasts.
The nights he held me after the supposed miscarriages.
But love used to conceal theft was still betrayal.
Rebecca Sloan filed for immediate annulment.
The court severed Aaron’s parental claims.
The unborn twins’ donor file remained sealed.
Sylvia said only the “Founder” knew.
The name appeared throughout Saint Agnes records.
No full identity.
Only initials.
E.M.
Investigators assumed Evelyn Mitchell, Sylvia’s mother.
Sylvia laughed when they asked.
“My mother was never the founder.”
“Who was?” I asked.
She looked toward Dr. Reed.
“The doctor who turned off your ultrasound.”
Dr. Reed froze.
May you like
Sylvia smiled.
“You thought Natalie found you by accident?”
