“Michael,” he repeated. “All those months I was working late. He was at the house. With you.” None of this made sense. I stared at him. “Because you asked him to help us.” Aaron looked back at the bassinet. “Your son has his birthmark, Elena. The same shape. The same place.” For a second I actually laughed, because I thought he was joking, because none of this made sense. “He was alone with you.”

“Aaron, what are you talking about? He’s your son. What does Michael have to do with…” “Don’t.” He held up one hand. “Don’t say his name to me like you don’t know.” “I don’t know,” I said. My voice cracked. “He was at the house. Every week. He was picking up the girls from school. He was alone with you.” “A DNA test. Right now.” “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 bloomed across my chest, sudden and stinging — my milk letting down at exactly the wrong moment, soaking through the thin hospital gown in two dark circles. I sat up too fast and the stitches pulled, a hot bright tug low in my body. I reached out and grabbed his 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.” “Don’t you dare do this to us.” He pulled his hand away like 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.” I was a liar.

He didn’t. “Don’t do this. Don’t you dare do this to us.” He walked to the door. He didn’t look at our son. He didn’t look at me. And then he was gone, and I was alone with a baby whose father had just decided, in the space of one glance, that I was a liar. **** Diana closed the front door behind me and took the car seat from my arms without a word. My son was three days old, and I was standing in my sister’s hallway with a diaper bag, a hospital bracelet still on my wrist, and a phone full of messages Aaron refused to open. “He won’t pick up.”

The girls were already upstairs. Lily had asked twice when Dad was coming to get us. I hadn’t known what to tell her. “Sit down,” Diana ordered. “You look like you’re about to fall over.” Grace had packed the banner they’d made for the baby and brought it with her. It was folded on the stairs now, one corner bent, WELCOME HOME HENRY written across it in four different colors. “Should I save it for when Dad comes?” she’d asked. “Elena, stop calling him.” I’d told her yes because I couldn’t make myself explain why we weren’t going home at all. “He won’t pick up. Look.”

I held out the screen. Three missed calls from me. One reply from Aaron: ‘I’ll have my lawyer contact you about the separation.’ Diana read it twice. “You’re not guilty. Act like it.” “Elena, stop calling him.” “He’s my husband. I have to make him listen.” “He’s not listening. That’s the whole point.” She sat down across from me and put her hand on my knee. “You keep begging, you keep looking guilty. You’re not guilty. Act like it.” I stared at the baby. Waiting was the worst part.

“What do I do?” “You prove it in a language he can’t argue with.” I ordered the test that afternoon. Diana went back to the house and brought me Aaron’s toothbrush from our bathroom. The cheek swab from my son took ten seconds. Mailing both samples took an hour, because I sat in the parking lot with the envelope in my lap, shaking. Waiting was the worst part. “I’ve known him a long time.” I kept replaying every time Michael had been alone with me. The pool party two summers ago. The cups of coffee at my kitchen table while Aaron worked late. ****

On the fourth day, the doorbell rang. Michael stood on Diana’s porch holding a stuffed bear. For a second I remembered him at Aaron’s father’s funeral, standing several feet behind the family while everyone filed past the casket. I’d thought it strange then. Michael had stayed until almost everyone else was gone, staring at the closed lid. “I can’t talk about it right now.” When I’d asked if he was all right, he’d only said, “I’ve known him a long time.” I’d assumed he meant through Aaron. “Elena, what’s going on? Aaron blocked me. Did I do something?”

I gripped the doorframe. “He deserves to hear it from Aaron.” “I can’t talk about it right now.” His face changed. “Is it the baby?” “We’re fine. Just give us time.” He set the bear on the step and left. Relief came first.

Diana watched him go. “You didn’t tell him.” “He deserves to hear it from Aaron. Not me.” **** A week after I mailed the swab, the results landed in my inbox. I opened the PDF on my phone in Diana’s kitchen. My hands were steadier than I expected. ‘Probability of paternity: 99.99%.’ I read the number again. I wasn’t going to beg this time. For one stupid second, relief came first. Then anger swallowed it. A week ago, I would have called Aaron immediately. I would have cried into the phone, told him we were okay, begged him to come home and put all of this behind us.