Chapter 3: What He Was Really Asking
A nurse gently took the baby from my arms and stepped toward the corner of the room.
I was grateful.
I needed both hands free, because I felt like I might fall.
Ryan was still staring at me.
"Say it," I told him.
"Whatever you're thinking, just say it."
"You know what I'm thinking."
"Ryan." My voice came out harder than I intended.
"I carried that baby for nine months.
I was there for every appointment.
Every scan.
Every blood draw.
Do not stand in this hospital room and look at me like that."
"Then explain the mark."
"I can't explain a birthmark.
Nobody can explain a birthmark."
"It's not just any birthmark." He turned away from me, pressing both hands flat against the window ledge.
Outside, the afternoon light was fading.
"That mark is specific.
It's shaped like a crescent, low on the left shoulder blade.
My father had it.
His father had it.
It only comes through the paternal line."
"So what?" Melissa said.
She had pulled herself upright in the chair beside the bed, her arms wrapped around her own waist.
Her voice was very controlled now.
Too controlled.
"So the baby has a birthmark that looks like your father's.
That doesn't mean anything."
"It means the biological father carries that line."
The word biological landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
I looked at Ryan.
"The donor was anonymous.
The clinic handled everything.
You were there, Ryan.
You signed every form."
"I know what I signed."
"Then you know there was no other man involved on my end."
He turned back from the window.
"I'm not saying it was you."
Melissa stood up so fast the chair scraped back against the floor.
"Don't."
"Melissa—"
"Don't you dare."
"I need to ask—"
"You need to stop." Her voice cracked on the last word.
"You need to stop right now, Ryan, because once you say it, you cannot take it back."
He said it anyway.
"Did you use a different donor?
Without telling me?"
The monitor beside the bed beeped steadily.
Down the hall, someone laughed.
A door opened and closed.
Melissa didn't answer.
She walked to the window and stood with her back to both of us, and the silence she left behind was the loudest thing I had ever heard.
"Melissa." I kept my voice low.
"Look at me."
She didn't move.
"Melissa, look at me right now."
She turned.
Her eyes were dry.
That was what frightened me most.
After all the tears, the eyes were completely dry.
"I didn't use a different donor," she said.
Ryan exhaled.
"But I need to tell you both something." She looked at Ryan first, then at me.
"And I need you to let me finish before either of you says a single word."
She sat back down.
May you like
Folded her hands in her lap.
And then she told us something that made the entire past year collapse and rebuild itself into a shape I didn't recognize.
