Chương 7
“There isn’t one.”
My answer came sharper than I intended.
Lily flinched.
I immediately softened my voice.
“There isn’t one, sweetheart.”
Emma stared at the screen.
“I told him that.”
“Thank you.”
“I said you barely go anywhere.”
Against all reason, I laughed.
Emma looked defensive.
“You don’t.”
“Apparently my innocence is based on poor social habits.”
Dad covered his mouth with one hand.
Emma smiled despite herself.
Then she grew serious.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is Nathan ours?”
The question was so gentle that it took me a moment to understand.
“Of course he is.”
“I mean ours ours.”
I felt the truth of what David had done then.
He had not only accused me.
He had placed uncertainty inside our daughters’ first memory of their brother.
I turned the camera toward Nathan.
He was awake again, blinking at nothing.
“This is your brother.”
Grace moved so close to Emma’s phone that only one eye remained visible.
“He’s tiny.”
“He’s brand new.”
“Can he hear us?”
“Yes.”
All four girls immediately shouted, “HI, NATHAN!”
He startled and began crying.
They burst into laughter.
Even I laughed.
“Excellent work.”
Grace clapped.
“He knows us.”
“He knows noise.”
“That counts.”
For a little while, we stayed like that.
The girls argued over who would hold him first.
Dad burned one batch of eggs.
Emma exposed him.
He denied it while standing in visible smoke.
Something in me unclenched.
Not healed.
Not forgiven.
Just loosened enough for air.
Then my phone vibrated with an incoming text from David.
I did not open it immediately.
That itself felt new.
I finished telling Grace she could not feed Nathan cereal.
I told Lily to stop eating in Emma’s bed.
I reminded Sophie to brush her teeth.
I told Emma I loved her.
Only after we ended the call did I look.
David had sent one sentence.
I want the paternity test tomorrow.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then I opened Patricia’s message thread and forwarded the screenshot without replying.
A second message arrived from David.
Unless you’re afraid of what it proves.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Every part of me wanted to answer.
I wanted to tell him about recessive genes.
About my father’s eyes.
About the cruelty of reducing a twelve-hour labor to a color he did not understand.
About the four daughters who had just asked whether their brother belonged to them.
Instead, I locked the phone.
Marisol noticed.
“That looked difficult.”
“It was.”
“Good difficult or bad difficult?”
“I didn’t respond.”
She nodded.
“That sounds like the useful kind.”
Near midnight, the maternity floor finally quieted.
Nathan slept in the bassinet beside me.
The hallway lights dimmed.
Somewhere two rooms down, another newborn cried with the stubborn rhythm of an alarm nobody could switch off.
I should have slept.
Instead I stared at the little blue teddy bear Dad had left on the windowsill.
There was a stitched silver star on one paw.
I had not noticed it before.
Three points were visible from where I lay.
I reached over and turned the bear.
The embroidery formed three small stars in a row.
For years Dad had hidden almost everything about his career from casual conversation because I had asked him to.
I had wanted David to marry me, not the mythology around my father.
I had wanted our daughters to know Grandpa, not Lieutenant General Hale.
David had taken my silence for proof that Dad was insignificant.
Maybe I had encouraged that because ordinary felt safer.
Maybe I had spent thirteen years doing the same thing with my husband.
Making dangerous things smaller by renaming them.
Temper.
Stress.
Pride.
Disappointment.
A bad day.
One slap.
Nathan shifted in his sleep.
His eyes opened briefly.
Blue.
Exactly blue.
I touched one fingertip to his tiny fist.
“Tomorrow,” I whispered, “we start using the right words.”
Morning came in pieces rather than all at once.
First there was the blood pressure cuff tightening around my arm.
Then Nathan crying.
Then a breakfast tray arriving with rubbery eggs, toast sealed in plastic, and coffee so weak it looked apologetic.
By six thirty, I had slept perhaps ninety minutes.
At seven, Dad texted me a photograph of all four girls asleep in the living room.
Emma had somehow claimed the couch.
Sophie and Lily were tangled together under one blanket on the floor.
Grace had fallen asleep sideways in an armchair with one foot hanging over the edge.
Dad had written only one line beneath the picture.
Nobody wanted to sleep upstairs.
I stared at it until my coffee went cold.
Patricia called at seven fifteen.
“Did he contact you again?”
“Three times.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Excellent.”
“I hate when lawyers sound pleased about silence.”
“We enjoy very few things.”
I heard keys tapping on her end.
“Your father told me the police removed the firearms from immediate access last night.”
“With David’s consent.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he agree?”
“Because refusing would have looked worse.”
That answer sounded like David.
“He’s thinking ahead.”
“Of course he is.”
My stomach tightened.
Patricia continued.
“Do not confuse rage with stupidity.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
I did not tell her that I sometimes had.
For years I had believed David’s worst moments happened because he lost control.
Maybe some of them did.
But he had also known when to stop yelling if a neighbor came outside.
He had known never to insult my father at Thanksgiving in front of people he wanted to impress.
He had known how to apologize without ever naming exactly what he had done.
Control had always returned when it became useful.
“What happens with the paternity test?”
“If you want one, get one.”
“I don’t care what he wants.”
“Then don’t do it for him.”
I looked at Nathan.
His face was scrunched in concentration over some private newborn problem.
“I want it.”
Patricia paused.
“Why?”
May you like
“Because my daughters heard him.”
“That is not the same as needing proof.”
