Chapter 3: The Name He Wouldn't Say Out Loud
Melissa stopped crying.
That was the first thing I noticed.
One second she was shaking, and then Ryan said those three words and the sound just went out of her, like someone had cut a wire.
"Who knew?" I asked.
"Ryan.
Who are you talking about?"
He sat with his hands on his knees and stared at the floor between his feet.
"Ryan."
"Give me a minute."
"You don't get a minute." I was still holding the baby.
My arms were starting to shake.
"This is my body we're talking about.
This is nine months of my life.
You don't get to sit there and say she already knew and then ask me for a minute."
He looked up.
His eyes moved to the baby, then away.
"The mark on her back," he said.
"It's called a Mongolian spot.
Most of the time it's nothing.
Just a birthmark.
But the shape of this one — the exact shape — I've seen it before.
On my cousin Danny's daughter.
She has the same one.
Identical."
The room was very quiet.
"That doesn't mean anything," Melissa said.
Her voice had gone flat.
"Lots of people have birthmarks."
"I know that." Ryan's jaw tightened.
"That's not why I called."
"Then why did you call?" I asked.
He stood up.
Walked to the window again.
He seemed to need the distance.
"Eight months ago," he said slowly, "Danny came to me.
He was drunk.
He said something I told myself I'd misheard.
I didn't want to deal with it, so I let it go." He turned around.
"He said that he and — that he had been with someone he shouldn't have been with.
He wouldn't say who.
He just kept saying he'd made a terrible mistake and that it was going to destroy everything."
The baby made a small sound against my chest.
"I called him just now," Ryan said.
"I told him about the birthmark.
About the baby." He stopped.
"He didn't deny it."
Melissa sat down on the edge of the hospital bed.
Slowly.
Like her legs had simply stopped working.
"He didn't deny it," she repeated.
"He started crying.
He said—" Ryan's voice broke.
He pressed his fingers to his mouth for a moment.
"He said he was sorry.
He said he never thought it would go this far."
I looked at Melissa.
She wasn't looking at anyone.
She was looking at the wall.
"Melissa," I said carefully.
"Did you know Danny?"
She didn't answer.
"Melissa."
"We worked together," she said.
"For about six months.
Two years ago." Her hands were folded in her lap, completely still.
"It was before we started the surrogacy process.
Before any of this."
The word before landed in the room and just sat there.
Ryan turned from the window.
He looked at his wife with an expression I had never seen on my brother's face before.
Not anger.
Something worse than anger.
Something that looked like the moment before a person understands something they can never un-understand.
"Melissa," he said.
"I need you to tell me the truth.
Right now.
Not later.
Right now."
She finally looked at him.
May you like
And she didn't say a word.
That silence told me everything.
