“He’s my husband. I have to make him listen.”

“He’s not listening. That’s the whole point.” She sat opposite me and placed a hand on my knee. “You keep begging, you keep looking guilty. You’re not guilty. Act like it.”

I looked toward the baby.

“What do I do?”

“You prove it in a language he can’t argue with.”

I ordered a DNA test that afternoon.

Diana returned to our house and brought me Aaron’s toothbrush from the bathroom.

Swabbing my son’s cheek took ten seconds.

Mailing the samples took nearly an hour because I sat shaking in the parking lot with the envelope resting in my lap.

Waiting was the worst part.

I replayed every moment Michael had spent around me.

The pool party.

The school pickups.

The coffee at my kitchen table while Aaron worked late.

On the fourth day, the doorbell rang.

Michael stood on Diana’s porch carrying a stuffed bear.

For a second, I remembered Aaron’s father’s funeral.

Michael had stood several feet behind the family while everyone walked past the casket.

At the time, I thought it was odd.

He stayed until most people had gone, staring at the closed lid.

When I asked whether he was okay, he only said, “I’ve known him a long time.”

I assumed he meant because of Aaron.

“Elena, what’s going on? Aaron blocked me. Did I do something?”

I gripped the doorframe.

“I can’t talk about it right now.”

His expression changed.

“Is it the baby?”

“We’re fine. Just give us time.”

Michael placed the bear on the porch and walked away.

Diana watched him leave.

“You didn’t tell him.”

“He deserves to hear it from Aaron. Not me.”

One week after I mailed the samples, the result arrived in my inbox.

I opened the PDF in Diana’s kitchen.

My hands were steadier than I expected.

*’Probability of paternity: 99.99%.’*

I read it twice.

For one foolish second, relief came first.

Then anger consumed it.

A week earlier, I would have called Aaron immediately.

I would have cried, begged him to come home, and tried to erase everything that happened.

My thumb hovered over his name.

Then I remembered him pulling away from me in the hospital.

I remembered begging him to look at me while he walked out.

I wasn’t going to beg this time.

I forwarded the result to Aaron.

No message.

No subject.

Just the attachment.