Chapter 5: What Danny Needed Me to Hear
I stared at the text for a long time.
Melissa was watching me.
I turned the phone face-down on the table.
"Who was it?" she asked.
"No one," I said.
"Give me a minute."
I pressed the call button for the nurse and asked her to take the baby to the nursery for a short while.
The nurse looked relieved to have something useful to do.
She lifted the baby carefully, and then it was just Melissa and me and the particular stillness of a hospital room after something has broken.
"I need to step out," I said.
"Please don't leave me alone right now."
"Melissa." I picked up my phone.
"I have to."
I walked into the hallway.
Ryan was not in sight.
I found a small family waiting area at the end of the corridor, empty, with two chairs and a window that looked out over the parking structure.
I sat down and called the number back.
Danny picked up on the first ring.
"Thank you," he said immediately.
"Thank you for calling."
"Don't thank me," I said.
"Talk."
He exhaled.
A long, unsteady sound.
"I need you to understand that I never meant for any of this to happen."
"That's not an explanation.
That's an excuse.
Try again."
A pause.
Then: "You're right.
I'm sorry." Another breath.
"Melissa and I — it was exactly what she told Ryan.
One night.
One mistake.
I ended it.
She ended it.
We both agreed to never speak of it again."
"Then why are you texting me from a number I don't have?"
"Because of what I found out three weeks ago."
I went still.
"What did you find out three weeks ago?"
"I was at a family thing," he said.
"My aunt — Ryan's mom's sister — she pulled me aside.
She'd had a few drinks.
She started talking about the surrogacy.
About how proud she was of Ryan and Melissa.
And she said something." He stopped.
"She said she hoped the baby wouldn't have the family mark.
I asked her what she meant.
She laughed it off.
Said it was an old thing, a birthmark that ran through certain branches of the family.
She said her own daughter had it.
Said Ryan never got it but that it sometimes skips."
"And you put it together."
"Not right away.
But later that night, yes.
I started thinking about the timing.
About what Melissa and I had done.
And I realized—" His voice dropped.
"I realized there was a chance.
A real chance."
"And you said nothing."
"I didn't know what to say.
I didn't know if I was right.
I didn't want to destroy Ryan's marriage over a maybe."
"So you stayed quiet and let me give birth to a baby whose father nobody had confirmed."
The silence on his end was answer enough.
"Danny," I said.
"That baby has been in this world for less than four hours.
And in those four hours, her father has walked out of the room, her mother has confessed to an affair, and I am sitting in a waiting area talking to the man who might actually be her biological father and who has known about this possibility for three weeks." I kept my voice level.
I was proud of that.
"You don't get to tell me you didn't know what to say."
"I know," he said.
"I know.
I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing and tell me what you want."
Another long pause.
"I want to do the right thing," he said.
"Whatever that means.
If she's mine — I want to know.
And I want to be honest with Ryan.
I owe him that."
"You owed him that three weeks ago."
"Yes," he said.
"I did."
I looked out the window at the parking structure.
A woman was loading groceries into a car two floors down.
Normal life, continuing normally, completely unaware.
"There's going to be a paternity test," I said.
"You'll need to cooperate."
"I will."
"And you're going to tell Ryan yourself.
Not me.
Not Melissa.
You."
He hesitated.
"He won't want to hear it from me."
"No," I said.
"He won't.
Do it anyway."
I ended the call.
Sat for a moment.
Then I walked back down the hallway toward Melissa's room.
Ryan was standing outside the door.
He had come back.
He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, not going in, not leaving.
Just standing there in the space between.
He looked at me when I approached.
"Was that Danny?" he asked.
I didn't ask how he knew.
"Yes," I said.
Ryan nodded slowly.
His jaw worked for a moment.
"Is he coming here?"
"I told him he needs to talk to you himself."
Ryan looked at the door.
At the small rectangular window in it.
At whatever he could see of Melissa through the glass.
"I loved her," he said.
Not past tense as a statement.
More like he was testing the word.
Checking whether it still fit.
"I know you did," I said.
"I still do." He said it like it surprised him.
"That's the part I can't figure out what to do with."
I stood beside him.
We didn't say anything for a while.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
May you like
His face went very still.
"It's the clinic," he said.
