Victor folded his arms.
“So you admit the agreement was valid.”
I looked at him.
“I admit I signed what you put in front of me.”
“You accepted the funds.”
“Yes.”
“Then you agreed to remain away.”
Ethan looked sharply at him.
“They are my children.”
Victor’s jaw flexed.
“If they are your children.”
One of the children looked toward Victor.
The suspicion in his voice had reached them.
That was when my restraint finally changed shape.
I did not shout.
I did not insult him.
I simply said, “Do not speak about them as though they are a threat to your balance sheet.”
Victor stared at me.
Ethan stepped between us.
“She is right.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“You have known about these children for less than an hour.”
“And you’ve known about the possibility for five years.”
Victor opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
That was the first moment Ethan understood something else.
“You knew she might have been pregnant.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
I answered before he could continue.
“I never told him.”
Ethan looked at me.
“Did he see anything? Did you say anything?”
“No.”
Victor seized on that immediately.
“There.
Even she admits I knew nothing.”
“You knew enough to make sure I could never speak to her again,” Ethan said.
That accusation Victor could not escape.
The paternity tests were arranged soon afterward.
There was no spectacle to them, no dramatic confrontation.
Just careful procedures, signed forms, and several days in which every person involved had to live with uncertainty.
For me, there was none.
I knew who my children’s father was.
For Ethan, the waiting was different.
He asked to see the children during that time.
I allowed it cautiously.
At first, he did not know what to do with four five-year-olds who had spent their entire lives without him.
He brought too many gifts the first time.
I made him leave most of them in the car.
“They don’t need to be purchased,” I told him.
The sentence hurt him.
It was meant to remind both of us what had started this.
So he came back the next day without gifts.
He sat on the floor.
He listened.
