Michael stared at me.
“You really filed?”
“Yes.”
“The same night?”
“Yes.”
He looked genuinely stunned.
I had told him I was doing it, but apparently he had assumed it was something said in anger.
A threat.
A dramatic line that would fade once I had slept.
He still didn’t understand that I had never been calmer than I was when I opened my laptop after midnight, our son asleep against my chest, and began filling out the forms.
Michael leaned back.
“So that’s it?”
“That accusation wasn’t one sentence, Michael.
It was weeks of punishment before you even said the words.”
“I wasn’t punishing you.”
“You stopped touching me.
You stopped helping with the baby.
You stayed away from home.
You looked at our son like he belonged to somebody else.”
His eyes flicked toward the ceiling, as if he could see the nursery through it.
“That mattered.”
“I know.”
“No.
You know the test result.
That isn’t the same thing.”
Michael went silent again.
I picked up the report and slid it toward him.
“Take it.”
He didn’t move.
“It’s yours,” I said.
“You paid for certainty.
There it is.”
His mouth tightened.
“I don’t want it.”
“That’s interesting.”
“What?”
“You wanted it badly enough to destroy our marriage over it.”
He flinched.
For the first time, I saw something besides defensiveness in his face.
Shame.
It should have satisfied me.
It didn’t.
There was one question I still needed answered.
“Why Brian?” I asked.
Michael frowned.
“Why him?”
“I told you.”
“No.
You told me we laughed at a dinner party.
That doesn’t explain accusing your wife of having your brother’s baby.”
His eyes moved away from mine.
That was when I realized there was still something he wasn’t saying.
“Michael.”
He rubbed his thumb along the edge of the table.
“Brian and I had an argument a while ago.”
“About what?”
