Chapter 4: The Name He Wouldn't Say
I gave him until the end of the party.
Not because I wanted to.
Because Lauren was still out there in the yard, one hand resting on her stomach, accepting hugs and cutting cake for people who had no idea what was folded in my pocket.
She deserved one more hour of not knowing.
Mark spent that hour avoiding me.
I watched him do it — the way he angled his body away whenever I entered a conversation, the way he refilled drinks he didn't need to refill, the way he laughed two beats too late at everything anyone said.
The baker left quietly.
She pressed her card into my hand before she went.
"If you need the footage," she said, "I'll send it to you.
I kept a copy."
"Why?"
She looked at Lauren across the yard.
"Because she reminds me of my daughter.
And nobody did this for my daughter."
After the last guest left, Lauren went upstairs to lie down.
The pregnancy exhausted her by late afternoon.
I told her I'd clean up.
Mark started stacking plates.
I let him get three steps toward the kitchen.
"Sit down."
He set the plates on the counter and sat.
I put the note on the table between us.
He looked at it.
Didn't touch it.
"I already told you—"
"You told me she's nobody and it's over." I sat across from him.
"Now tell me why she paid to change the gender result."
"She didn't pay.
I paid."
"Why?"
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Because Diane is also pregnant."
The yard was completely still.
The neighbor's sprinkler had stopped.
I could hear the refrigerator hum.
"How far along?"
"Fourteen weeks."
I did the math without meaning to.
Lauren was twenty-two weeks.
The photo was eleven weeks old.
Diane was fourteen weeks along.
"You were with both of them at the same time."
He didn't deny it.
He pressed his palms flat on the table and stared at a point somewhere between us.
"Does Diane know about Lauren's pregnancy?"
"Yes."
"Does she know about today?"
"She found out this morning.
That's why she came to the bakery." His voice was flat.
Reciting.
"She wanted to ruin it.
I got there first and changed the result so Lauren would still have her moment.
So today wouldn't be about Diane."
"You changed your daughter's gender result to protect your secret."
"I changed it to protect Lauren."
"Don't." My voice came out harder than I planned.
"Don't call it that."
He looked up.
"What does Diane want?" I asked.
"She wants me to leave Lauren."
"And what do you want?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
The refrigerator kept humming.
"I want this to go away," he said.
I stood up.
"It won't." I picked up the note.
"Lauren is going to find out.
Tonight or tomorrow or next week — she will find out.
The only question is whether she hears it from you or from Diane."
"Carol, please—"
"I'm not asking you to do the right thing for me." I looked at him.
"I'm telling you that Diane is not going to stay quiet.
She left a note under a gender reveal cake.
That is not a woman who is going to stay quiet."
He said nothing.
I walked to the bottom of the stairs and listened.
The house was still.
Lauren was asleep.
I went back to the kitchen and sat down again.
Not because I wanted to keep talking to him.
Because I needed to think, and I needed to watch his face while I did it.
"Is Diane's baby yours?"
His hands moved on the table.
Just slightly.
A small shift.
"She says it is."
"Have you done a test?"
"She won't."
I looked at him for a long time.
"She won't agree to a test," I said slowly, "but she'll walk into a bakery and pay to sabotage a gender reveal."
Something shifted in his expression.
A small crack.
"She didn't pay," he said again.
"I paid.
She came back on her own.
I didn't know she was going to do that."
"So she's not following your plan."
"She doesn't have a plan.
She's—" He stopped.
"She's what?"
He pressed his fingers against his eyes.
"She's not stable," he said quietly.
"She's been calling Lauren's number.
I've been intercepting the calls.
Deleting the voicemails before Lauren can hear them."
The refrigerator stopped humming.
The silence was total.
"How many voicemails?" I asked.
He didn't answer.
May you like
Upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Lauren was awake.
