Page 42 of A Castle in the Sky: Fern & Connor
His eyes held panic and his hand trembled as he reached for hers.
The inner door opened with a softclick.
"Mr. Ashbourne?" the receptionist called. "Mr. Hughes will see you now."
Connor stood so fast the chair almost toppled. Fern followed slowly, heart thudding.
Gareth Hughes' office was smaller than she'd imagined and cluttered in a comfortable way—files stacked on the floor, a Welsh rugby scarf draped over the back of a chair, a framed photo of three kids in matching Christmas jumpers on the cabinet.
The man stood as they came in.
He was short and stout, with thinning dark hair and a neat beard. His tie was crooked, his shirt slightly rumpled, and his handshake warm. The accent was pure South Wales, with his rounded vowels and a musical lilt.
"Connor, good to see you again," he said, squeezing Connor's hand. "And you must be Fern. Come in, come in, sit down."
They took the two comfortable chairs in front of his desk. Connor leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees as if he might spring up at any second. Fern sat back, palms pressed flat against her thighs.
Hughes settled into his chair and flipped open the thin file. There was a faint, almost apologetic smile tugging at his mouth.
"Well," he said, exhaling. "I won't keep you in suspense. I got the call from the lab. I have the results, but I haven't taken a peek yet."
Connor's hands shook as he took the extended envelope.
He tore it raggedly, taking an edge off the report within in his haste. After unfolding it, he just stared at it.
"I... I don't understand. What does this... what does it mean? Fern?" he stuttered, pleading.
She took it from him.
'...zero percent probability of paternity'
'.... is excluded as the biological father.'
Chapter 22
The words on the page meant nothing.
Connor stared at the report, at the neat black font and the dense blocks of technical phrasing, but they might as well have been in another language. His name, he recognised, but everything else blurred and swam, as if someone had tipped ink into water and given it a whirl.
"... as you can see from section three, Mr. Ashbourne, the probability of paternity—"
The lawyer's voice came from far away, muffled, like someone shouting from the surface while he lay on the bottom of a swimming pool. Connor blinked at the line the solicitor was tapping with his pen. He recognised his signature at the bottom of the page.
He had thought he was ready for whatever this said.
He had been wrong.
His chest felt like there were slowly tightening bands of steel around them, his lungs dragging at the air like they were clogged with wet sand. His ears were ringing. Somewhere to his left, a chair creaked as Fern shifted, leaning closer.
"Thank you," she was saying to the lawyer, but her tone told him she was holding herself together by the fingernails. "Could we have a copy of the report, please?"
"Of course." Papers rustled. A printer whirled.
Connor stared at the copy in his hands, his eyes snagging on the same line.
...does not support a biological relationship consistent with paternity...
Not the father.
