“Aaron, what are you talking about? He’s your son. What does Michael have to do with…”

“Don’t.” He raised one hand. “Don’t say his name to me like you don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” I said, my voice breaking.

“He was at the house. Every week. He was picking up the girls from school. He was alone with you.”

“Because I was seven months pregnant and you were working overtime, Aaron. Because he was helping us. Because he is your best friend.”

“Don’t.”

Heat suddenly spread through my chest as my milk came in, soaking through the thin hospital gown.

I sat up too quickly, and my stitches pulled sharply.

I reached for Aaron’s wrist.

“Then do a test,” I said. “A DNA test. Right now. Today. I don’t care what it costs, I don’t care what you have to sign, do it.”

He jerked his hand away as if I had burned him.

“I don’t need a test to tell me what I’m looking at.”

“Aaron.”

“Take the baby to your sister’s when they discharge you. Take him to Diana’s. I can’t. I can’t be in the same house.”

“Aaron, please. Just look at me.”

He wouldn’t.

“Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this to us.”

Aaron walked toward the door.

He didn’t look at our son.

He didn’t look at me.

Then he left.

And I was alone with a newborn whose father had decided, after one glance, that I was a liar.

Diana shut the front door behind me and took the car seat from my hands without saying anything.

My son was three days old.

I stood in my sister’s hallway with a diaper bag, my hospital bracelet still around my wrist, and a phone full of messages Aaron refused to answer.

The girls were already upstairs.

Lily had asked me twice when Dad was coming to get us.

I didn’t know what to tell her.

“Sit down,” Diana ordered. “You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Grace had brought the banner they made for the baby.

It sat folded on the stairs now, one corner bent, WELCOME HOME HENRY written in four different colors.

“Should I save it for when Dad comes?” she’d asked.

I told her yes because I couldn’t explain why we weren’t going home.

“He won’t pick up. Look.”

I showed Diana my screen.

Three calls from me.

One message from Aaron:

*’I’ll have my lawyer contact you about the separation.’*

Diana read it twice.

“Elena, stop calling him.”