Chương 5
At 2:36 a.m., Ethan sent another message.
I’m awake. You don’t need to answer. I should have told you in January when Vanessa sent the screenshots. I should have told you in February before I agreed to the test. I should have told you after the result. There isn’t a version of this where hiding it was acceptable.
Claire read it.
Then she typed:
Why did you believe her?
She erased it.
Typed:
Did you ever look at my phone?
Erased that too.
Finally she wrote:
Did you take my blood without my consent?
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Then disappeared.
Reappeared.
Yes.
Claire stared at the word until it blurred.
Another message came.
I was told the draw was permissible because you had signed a broad laboratory consent for prenatal genetic analysis. I did not tell you paternity analysis was being added. I should have. I knew you would not have agreed if I asked.
Claire put the phone facedown.
That sentence was worse than a lie.
It was the truth stated accurately.
He had known her answer and found a way around it.
She slept for twenty-seven minutes before Noah woke.
Morning arrived without permission.
At seven, sunlight appeared weakly through clouds over the city. Claire stood in the kitchen drinking cold water and eating peanut butter from a spoon because the idea of making breakfast felt unreasonable.
Noah slept in a portable bassinet near the table.
Claire’s mother called.
Claire let it ring.
A client emailed asking about revisions.
Claire marked the message unread.
A delivery arrived containing diapers Ethan had ordered three days earlier.
She stared at the box outside the apartment door for almost a minute before bringing it in.
At nine, she called her obstetrician’s office.
She asked for copies of every consent form she had signed during pregnancy and every laboratory requisition connected to the February blood draw.
The receptionist told her records requests usually took time.
Claire said, “Someone used my blood for a paternity test I did not know I was taking.”
The receptionist became very quiet.
She placed Claire on hold.
A nurse came on the line.
Then the office manager.
Claire repeated the sentence twice more.
By the third time, it no longer sounded like something that had happened to her. It sounded like a sentence belonging to a television crime show.
The office manager said they had no record of ordering a paternity analysis.
The February draw in their system was listed as a repeat cell-free DNA sample for a screening panel.
Claire wrote that down.
Her handwriting looked unlike hers.
“Was Vanessa Cole authorized to request anything on my behalf?”
A pause.
“I don’t recognize that name.”
“She was associated with Meridian Genomics.”
Another pause.
“I need to have our compliance person review the file.”
“When?”
“I don’t want to give you a time I can’t promise.”
That answer, oddly, made Claire trust her more.
“Please do.”
At ten, Claire called an independent genetic testing service with an accredited collection site.
She did not ask for a home kit.
She wanted witnessed collection.
She wanted identification checked.
She wanted signatures.
She wanted no friend of Ethan’s touching a tube.
The woman on the phone asked whether she wanted a paternity test involving the child and alleged father.
Claire hated alleged father now.
“Yes.”
“Would you also like maternity included?”
Claire almost said no.
Then she remembered Vanessa.
Yours was.
“Include me.”
The earliest appointment was the following afternoon.
Claire booked it.
Then she texted Ethan.
Independent parentage test tomorrow, 2 p.m. Witnessed collection. You can attend if you want the answer. Do not arrange anything.
His response came less than a minute later.
I’ll be there.
Claire watched Noah sleep for a while.
He had one fist beside his head.
Ethan slept that way.
She hated noticing.
Around noon, her friend Mia came by with soup because Claire had failed to answer three messages and Mia had interpreted silence as permission to arrive.
Claire almost did not let her in.
Then Noah began crying.
Mia took one look at Claire’s face and said, “Okay, I’m not asking anything until you eat.”
Claire sat at the kitchen counter.
Mia heated soup.
She complained about the microwave because Ethan had bought one with a drawer instead of a door and no one besides Ethan understood why.
“You have to press the stupid little button first,” Mia said.
“I know.”
“Why does a microwave need suspense?”
Claire laughed.
It surprised her so much she covered her mouth.
Then she started crying.
Mia turned off the microwave.
She came around the counter and put one hand on Claire’s shoulder.
“What happened?”
Claire told her.
Not beautifully.
Not in order.
She began with Vanessa at the airport, moved backward to the screenshots, forward to the February report, then remembered halfway through that Ethan and Vanessa had dated before Claire met him.
Mia listened.
At the end she said, “I’m going to say something you won’t like.”
“Great.”
“You cannot decide what your marriage is today.”
Claire looked at her.
Mia raised both hands. “I’m not defending him. I’m saying you slept twenty-seven minutes.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me four times.”
Claire rubbed her forehead.
Mia put the soup in front of her.
“Eat before you become legally insane.”
“That isn’t a thing.”
“Not with that attitude.”
Claire took a spoonful.
The soup tasted like almost nothing.
Mia sat across from her.
“Do you think the screenshots are fake?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Ethan knows they’re fake?”
“I don’t know what Ethan knows.”
“Do you think he cheated with Vanessa?”
“No.”
That answer came quickly.
Claire disliked its certainty.
Mia noticed.
“That bothers you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want everything to be simple.”
Mia nodded.
“If he cheated, I could hate him.”
“You can still hate him a little.”
Claire stared at the soup.
“I don’t want to.”
“That seems inconvenient.”
May you like
Claire laughed again, smaller this time.
Noah began crying in the other room.
