Chương 4
“I have to call him.”
Emily knew who he meant.
William.
She wanted to say not today.
She wanted twenty-four hours in which nothing else happened.
She wanted to nurse Noah, take a shower, wash the burp cloths, and complain about the strange ache in her lower back.
Instead she asked, “Do you want to call him because you need him to know, or because you’re angry at her?”
Daniel looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe don’t do it yet.”
“He deserves to know.”
“Yes.”
“Today.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“She had thirty-three years.”
“This isn’t about what she deserves.”
“What is it about?”
“Making sure you don’t do the next thing because she forced you into it.”
He looked away.
Emily expected him to argue.
He did not.
After a while, he said, “I hate that you’re right.”
“I’m not sure I am.”
“That’s worse.”
Noah began to stir.
Emily felt the change against her chest before he made a sound.
His face wrinkled.
One fist emerged from the blanket.
Then he cried.
It was not a cinematic cry.
It was thin and indignant and surprisingly loud for a person who weighed seven pounds.
Emily stood carefully.
Her body protested.
Daniel immediately reached for Noah.
“I’ve got him.”
“I need to feed him.”
“I can change him first.”
“He was changed twenty minutes ago.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
Daniel checked.
Noah needed changing.
Emily sat back down.
Daniel lifted the baby with the grave concentration of someone defusing an explosive device.
For the next ten minutes, the Carter family secret waited on the coffee table while Daniel changed his son’s diaper and got peed on.
Emily laughed hard enough that her incision area hurt.
Daniel stared at the wet front of his T-shirt.
“This is betrayal.”
“He’s not sorry.”
“He should be. I have documentation now.”
The humor disappeared almost as quickly as it had come.
Documentation.
Daniel looked toward the envelope.
Emily saw him make the connection.
He finished fastening Noah’s diaper.
Then he carried him over.
Emily took the baby.
Daniel went upstairs to change his shirt.
When he came back, he had his phone.
“I’m calling Dad.”
Emily did not tell him not to.
William answered on the third ring.
Daniel put the call on speaker but kept the volume low.
“Hey, Danny.”
William’s voice was warm and distracted.
Emily pictured him in his garage, probably wearing one of the old gray sweatshirts he refused to throw away.
“What’s up? Everything okay with the little guy?”
Daniel looked at Emily.
“Noah’s fine.”
“Good. Your mother said she might swing by there. She drop off the soup?”
Emily closed her eyes.
Daniel said, “Yeah. She came by.”
No soup had come with Margaret.
There was a brief silence.
William said, “You sound weird.”
“Dad, I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Mom had you do a cheek swab recently?”
A longer pause.
“Yeah.”
“What did she tell you it was for?”
“Family tree stuff. I don’t know. She’s been watching those genealogy shows.”
Daniel pressed his lips together.
“Did you sign anything?”
“Probably.”
“Do you remember what?”
“Daniel, I sign the phone screen when I buy a sandwich. You’re going to have to narrow it down.”
Under any other circumstances, Daniel would have laughed.
He did not.
William heard that too.
His voice changed.
“What happened?”
Daniel looked at Emily again.
She wished he could hand the decision to her.
He could not.
“It wasn’t a genealogy kit.”
William said nothing.
Daniel continued.
“She used your sample for a grandparentage DNA test with Noah.”
“What?”
“She tested whether you were biologically related to him as his paternal grandfather.”
The silence on the phone felt physical.
William finally said, “Why would she do that?”
“Because she thought Noah wasn’t mine.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The test said you weren’t related to him.”
William inhaled.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“But I got my own result today,” he said. “A proper chain-of-custody paternity test. Noah is mine.”
William did not respond.
The mower outside stopped.
The house suddenly seemed too quiet.
Daniel’s hand trembled around the phone.
“Dad?”
William cleared his throat.
“Let me talk to your mother.”
“She left.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
Another pause.
Then William asked the question Emily had been dreading.
“Did she say something?”
Daniel’s voice became very soft.
“She said she was twenty-two.”
William did not speak again for so long that Daniel checked the screen to see if the call had disconnected.
Finally William said, “I’ll call you back.”
“Dad—”
The line went dead.
Daniel lowered the phone.
Emily watched him stare at it.
“He knew something was wrong,” Daniel said.
“Maybe.”
“No. You heard him.”
“I heard him get scared.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Daniel stood.
“I should go over there.”
“No.”
He looked at her sharply.
Emily did not raise her voice.
“You have a newborn son. You have a wife who hasn’t slept more than two hours at a time in almost two weeks. Your mother just blew up two households. You are not getting in a car this angry.”
“I’m fine to drive.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He paced toward the windows and back.
“I’m supposed to sit here?”
“For ten minutes, yes.”
Daniel stopped.
She could see the argument forming.
Then Noah began rooting against her shirt.
Emily looked down.
“He’s hungry.”
Daniel laughed once in disbelief.
“Of course he is.”
“Apparently he’s not following the family crisis.”
“Selfish.”
Emily unbuttoned the top of her shirt.
Daniel turned away automatically even though he had seen every possible version of breastfeeding difficulty in the last eleven days.
She noticed.
“You don’t have to turn around.”
“I know.”
“You watched a nurse squeeze my breast like she was checking a cantaloupe.”
“I try not to think about that.”
Emily positioned Noah.
He latched badly.
She winced.
Daniel came back and sat beside her.
“Too shallow?”
May you like
“Yes.”
He had learned the vocabulary.
