Chapter 3: What the Mother Knew
The flowers hit the floor before anyone spoke.
Diane — Nathan's mother — didn't bend to pick them up.
She stood in the doorway with her hand still raised from where she'd been holding them, her eyes fixed on the baby's neck.
"Mom." Nathan's voice came out strange.
Flat.
"You've seen this before."
It wasn't a question.
She finally stepped inside and let the door close behind her.
She didn't look at me.
She didn't look at Nathan.
She looked only at the baby.
"Diane." I said her name as clearly as I could from the bed.
"What do you know?"
She sat down in the chair nearest the door.
Like she needed it.
"It's not what you think," she said quietly.
"Then tell me what it is." Nathan set our daughter back in the bassinet with careful hands.
When he straightened up, his voice had gone very still.
"Because right now what I think is that my wife was with my brother.
And that birthmark is the only reason I'm thinking it."
Diane pressed her fingers to her mouth.
"Marcus doesn't have that birthmark because he was born with it," she said.
"He has it because your father had it.
And your father's brother had it.
And your grandfather." She paused.
"And you, Nathan.
You have one too."
The room went absolutely silent.
Nathan shook his head.
"I don't have a birthmark."
"You do." Diane's voice barely held.
"On your left shoulder blade.
You've had it since birth.
It's small.
You've never noticed it because you've never had reason to look."
Nathan turned to me.
I had no words.
I had shared a bed with this man for twelve years and I had never once thought to look at his shoulder blade.
"Check," I said.
He reached back and pulled the collar of his hospital gown aside.
He twisted, trying to see.
He couldn't get the angle.
"Use your phone," I said.
He took out his phone, turned on the camera, held it behind his shoulder.
The photo showed a small dark mark.
Crescent-shaped.
Identical.
Nathan sat down on the edge of my bed.
He stared at the screen for a long time.
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" he finally said to his mother.
"Because it never mattered before." Diane's eyes filled.
"It's just a family mark.
It means nothing except that she is yours, Nathan.
She is completely yours."
I watched Nathan look from his phone to the bassinet where our third daughter lay sleeping.
His jaw worked.
"Then why did I not know?" he said.
"Why did nobody ever think to tell me that I carry this?
That my children might carry it?"
Diane had no answer for that.
She looked at her hands.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"I didn't think—"
"You didn't think." Nathan stood up.
"I just accused my wife.
In a delivery room.
Hours after she gave birth to our three daughters." His voice cracked on the last word.
"Because nobody thought to tell me."
He walked to the bassinet.
He looked down at our third daughter for a long moment.
Then he picked her up, very gently, and brought her to me.
"I'm sorry," he said.
His voice broke completely.
"I'm so sorry."
I took her.
I held all the things I wanted to say and didn't say any of them.
Not yet.
The baby made a small sound against my chest.
Diane was still sitting by the door.
She was crying quietly, and she hadn't moved to leave, and something about the way she sat — too still, too careful — told me that the birthmark was not the only thing she hadn't told us.
"Diane," I said.
She looked up.
"Is there anything else you haven't told Nathan about his family?"
May you like
Her hands tightened in her lap.
And she didn't answer.
