Chapter 31: Chapter Thirty

After trying—and failing—to force myself to eat some lunch, I tossed my cheese sandwich in the garbage and grabbed my keys. I couldn’t face more hours of staring out windows or waiting for phone calls. I had to move, to do something.

Knowing that aimless searching made no sense, I nevertheless drove up and down streets, examining the faces of pedestrians, peering into every laneway and recessed doorway. My fears and frustration mounted with every failure to see any sign of Maddy, but I kept going.

Luckily the mid-afternoon traffic wasn’t heavy, because my attention was not on my driving. I had a couple of close calls and a few angry drivers blaring their horns at me.

Though the weather had still been clear when I left home, half an hour later big raindrops started falling on my windshield. The skies darkened, and wind was buffeting my car. By the time I reached Wellington Street, passing by the Parliament Buildings on my left, their stone walls were barely visible through the driving rain. Even leaning forward I could hardly see the top of the Peace Tower, and the few pedestrians on the sidewalks were scurrying to find somewhere dry.

I could only hope that Maddy wasn’t out in this. It was hard to even pretend that I had a chance to find her. All that this fruitless drive had accomplished was giving me the illusion of doing something. I headed down O’Connor Avenue, my windshield wipers valiantly working to give me a view of the street ahead. By the time I arrived home, I was wondering why I’d thought this trip made any sense.

****

Tom phoned around five. After asking if there was any news about Maddy, he asked if I’d had any result from the DNA test yet. “I thought the report was due by now.”

I should have expected him to ask about it—he’d been there when I demanded the test, after all—but I wasn’t ready with an answer. I realized I couldn’t hide the result from him, though.

“Yes, it came through this morning.”

“Well—?”

“It’s not a good result.”

“What do you mean?”

“The report on Daniel is inconclusive. Due to insufficient data, apparently.” I drew a breath. “But the maternal test, the one comparing Maddy and me, is not showing that I’m Maddy’s mother. It says—” I took a breath. “It says I’m excluded as her mother.”

Silence. “How’s that possible?”

“I don’t know!” My denial suddenly seemed ludicrous. I was flying in the face of science; how could I counter the accuracy of DNA?

But Tom wasn’t a lawyer for nothing. “Could there be a problem with the sample collection, or a mix-up in samples?”

All right. “That’s the only explanation that makes sense. Because, believe me, I am her mother. But they say there was no mix-up.”

Another brief silence. “Will Daniel get those results too?”

“I assume he already has them.”

“This isn’t good. He’ll latch on to that as proof.”

My throat tightened. “I know.”

Aisha still hadn’t returned my call. I checked her number and phoned again. This one went to voicemail as well, so all I could do was leave another message. “Aisha, I need to speak to you. That maternal test is wrong. We need to figure out how that could have happened. I know you don’t believe me, but...something is definitely not right with that test. Please call me back as soon as possible.”

****

I called Jenny after talking to Tom. She asked how I was doing.

“I forced myself to have a shower and put on clean clothes this morning. But it somehow seemed wrong to spend any time on things like that.”

“Don’t be silly. Neglecting yourself won’t help Maddy.”

I sighed. “And then I spent the afternoon driving around like an idiot, telling myself I was searching for her. I’m lucky I didn’t have an accident.” I refocused. “But that’s not why I’m calling. The police want to know if we can put up a bunch of posters about Maddy. Marie said she’d be dropping them off later. I was hoping to work on that tonight...but now with this rain—”

Jenny broke in. “Look outside—the rain has already stopped.”

She was right; the sky was now clear. Just another example of Ottawa’s unpredictable November weather.

“Okay—assuming Marie does deliver the posters, would you be able to help me with them tonight?”

“Of course! And I’ll see if we can get a couple of helpers.”