Chapter 8: Three Months Along
I read the message four times.
My mom was still at the stove.
Carol was still in the armchair.
Neither of them had seen my face yet.
I stood up, walked to the hallway, and called Patricia.
She answered on the second ring.
"I just received another anonymous text," I said.
I read it to her.
Patricia was quiet for exactly three seconds.
"Don't respond," she said.
"Don't delete it.
Screenshot it immediately and send it to me."
"If it's true—"
"If it's true, it changes the financial picture significantly," she said.
"A child born during the marriage, even to another woman, has legal implications for asset division and support obligations.
It also directly contradicts what he told you twenty minutes ago about ending it."
"He said he didn't know where she was," I said.
"Yes," Patricia said.
"He did say that."
I sent her the screenshot.
Then I stood in the hallway and breathed.
In.
Out.
The way the nurse had taught me.
I went back into the living room.
Carol looked up.
She read something in my face.
"What happened?" she said.
I told her.
The room was very quiet.
My mom turned from the stove.
Carol's hand moved to the baby on her chest, a small involuntary protective gesture.
"Are you all right?" my mom said.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly.
Carol looked at the wall for a moment.
Then she said, "I want you to know something.
Whatever happens with Trevor — whatever he has done — those two girls are my granddaughters.
That does not change.
And if there is another child, that child is not responsible for what their father did." She paused.
"But neither are you."
I nodded.
I didn't have words for what that meant to me, so I didn't try.
The next morning, Patricia filed the motion to freeze the joint accounts.
Gerald Fitch called her within the hour.
"He's rattled," she told me afterward.
"He asked for a two-week extension before we proceed with formal discovery.
I said no."
"What reason did he give?"
"He said Trevor needed time to gather documents.
I said Trevor had had nine weeks to gather documents while planning this in secret, so two more weeks seemed unnecessary."
I almost smiled.
"What happens next?"
"Discovery begins.
We request everything — financial records, communications, the works.
If Dana Marsh is pregnant, it will surface.
If he transferred more money than we've already found, it will surface." She paused.
"I also want to depose Patrice Okafor formally.
Her account of that phone call is valuable, and I want it on record before anyone has a chance to pressure her."
"Do you think someone would pressure her?"
"Gerald Fitch is strategic," Patricia said.
"I don't assume anything."
Two days later, Trevor showed up at the house.
He hadn't arranged it through Patricia.
He rang the doorbell at ten in the morning, and when I opened the door he was standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking like he hadn't slept.
"You can't be here without prior arrangement," I said.
"You know that."
"I know," he said.
"I just — I needed to see them."
I looked at him for a moment.
Then I stepped back from the door.
He came in.
Stood in the hallway.
Carol appeared from the kitchen doorway and looked at him without speaking, then went back inside.
I brought both girls into the living room and sat down.
Trevor sat across from me.
I placed one daughter in his arms.
He held her very carefully.
Like he was afraid of doing it wrong.
"What's her name?" he said.
"We haven't finalized them yet," I said.
"I wanted to do that together."
He looked up.
Something moved across his face.
"I lied to you," he said.
"On the phone.
About Dana."
I waited.
"She is pregnant," he said.
"I found out two weeks before the vacation.
That's — that's part of why I went.
I didn't know what to do.
I thought if I could just — I don't know what I thought."
"You thought distance would make it easier," I said.
"I thought I could figure out a way to make it not real," he said.
The baby in his arms made a small sound and he looked down at her immediately, instinctively.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said.
"I know I don't get to ask for that.
I just — I need you to know that I know what I did.
All of it."
"I know you know," I said.
"That's not the same as it being fixable."
He nodded.
He didn't argue.
"I want to be their father," he said.
"Whatever that looks like now.
I want to be present for them."
"Then be present for them," I said.
"Through the proper channels.
Through Patricia and Gerald Fitch.
Build something that works for them, not something that's convenient for you."
He looked at the baby in his arms for a long time.
"Okay," he said finally.
He held her for another ten minutes.
Then he handed her back, stood up, and walked to the door.
He stopped with his hand on the frame.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For all of it.
Not because I got caught.
Because I knew it was wrong the whole time and I did it anyway."
I looked at him.
"I believe you," I said.
"It doesn't change anything.
But I believe you."
He left.
I sat in the quiet living room with both daughters in my arms.
Carol came in and sat beside me.
She didn't say anything.
May you like
She just sat there.
After a while, my mom came in too, and the four of us — three women and two new babies — sat in the afternoon light while the world outside continued on without any of us needing to explain anything to it.
