Chapter 5: What Diane Said
Diane arrived at half past eight with a bag over her shoulder and a look on her face that said she had already decided someone was going to answer for this.
She was four years older than me and had raised two boys largely on her own after her divorce, and she had a way of walking into a room that made it feel smaller and safer at the same time.
She hugged me carefully around the tubes and wires, looked at the baby for a long, quiet moment, and then pulled her chair close.
"Tell me everything," she said.
"From the beginning."
I told her.
She didn't interrupt.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap and listened to all of it — the birthmark, Caleb's face, the hallway phone call, Nate's visits in the spring, the timing, what Caleb had said before he left.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"Where is Caleb now?" she asked.
"I don't know.
The waiting room, maybe."
"And Nate?"
"He wants to come here.
I said no."
Diane nodded slowly.
"Good." She looked at the baby.
"Have you slept at all?"
"No."
"Okay." She stood, poured me a glass of water from the pitcher on the tray, and handed it to me.
"Drink that.
Then I'm going to tell you what I think, and you can tell me if I'm wrong."
I drank.
She sat back down.
"Nate is panicking.
That's why he called Caleb last night.
Not because he wanted to do the right thing — because he saw a way this could come out and he wanted to get ahead of it.
He wanted to be the one to frame the story."
"You don't know that."
"I know Nate." She said it flatly.
She and Nate had never gotten along.
I had always put it down to personality differences.
Now I wasn't sure.
"He has always done whatever is convenient for Nate.
Including, apparently, this."
"We don't know what this is yet."
"No," she said.
"We don't.
And that's exactly the point.
You don't know.
Which means you don't owe anyone a reaction, a conversation, or a decision right now.
Not Caleb, not Nate, not anyone." She leaned forward.
"What you need is a paternity test.
Quietly, through your doctor, as soon as possible.
Until you have that result, nothing anyone says to you means anything."
"Caleb said he doesn't believe it."
"I heard you." Her voice was careful.
"What do you believe?"
I looked at my daughter.
She had opened her eyes — dark, unfocused, blinking slowly at the light.
"I believe she's mine," I said.
"I know that much."
"Yes," Diane said.
"She is absolutely yours.
That part is not in question." She reached over and touched my hand.
"The rest we find out.
Quietly, carefully, and on your timeline.
Not theirs."
A knock at the door.
We both looked up.
Caleb stood in the doorway.
He had clearly not slept.
His eyes went to Diane, then to me.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
I looked at my sister.
She gave me the smallest nod — your call.
"Yes," I said.
"But Nate doesn't come here.
Not today."
"Agreed." He came in and stood at the foot of the bed.
He looked at the baby for a moment.
Something in his face was very careful, very controlled.
"I called my mother."
Diane's chin came up slightly.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because she knows things about our family history that I don't.
About the birthmark.
About who carried it and who didn't." He paused.
"She said it can only pass through a direct paternal line.
Father to child.
Not through cousins, not through uncles."
The word landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"She said that?" I asked.
"She was very clear about it.
She said her own doctor told her years ago — it's a specific genetic marker.
Paternal line only." He looked at me steadily.
"Which means if our daughter has it, it came from me.
Or it came from someone who shares my father's direct line."
Diane said quietly, "Nate shares that line."
"Yes," Caleb said.
"He does."
Nobody spoke.
Then Caleb said, "I want a test.
I'm asking for one.
Not because I'm accusing you of anything — I want to be clear about that.
But because I need to know, and I think you do too, and I think the only way we get through whatever this is, is if we stop guessing."
I looked at him for a long moment.
"I already decided that an hour ago," I said.
He nodded once.
"Okay."
"And Caleb." I held his gaze.
"When Nate calls you again — and he will — you tell him nothing.
Not what we're doing, not what your mother said, not what I said.
Nothing."
Something shifted in Caleb's expression.
"You think he'll try to interfere."
"I think Diane is right," I said.
"I think he's already trying to."
Caleb's phone buzzed in his pocket.
He looked at the screen.
His face went flat.
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a text from Nate.
*I need you to hear my side before she does something we can't take back.
May you like
Please, Caleb.
Don't let her do the test.*
