“Okay, Dr. Tiffany. Shoes off and wash your hands first, then we’ll see what this is all about.”
She darted off. I was still smiling when Greg came through the door.
“Mom! We’re doing genetics! We have to swab our families.”
“Hey, babe,” I said.
“Hey.” Greg was already distracted. He kissed my cheek absentmindedly and headed for the fridge.
Tiffany reappeared and jumped up to hug him.
“Hey, bug. What’s all this about?” Greg asked, nodding to the kit.
“It’s my genetics project for school,” she said, holding up a sterile swab like a trophy. “Open up, Daddy! I need a sample from you and Mom!”
“Hey, bug. What’s all this about?”
Greg turned. He looked at the swab, then at me… then at our daughter. His fingers flexed like he wanted to snatch it out of her hand. His face lost every hint of color. His voice, when it came, didn’t belong to the man I married.
“No.”
“Huh?” Tiffany blinked. “But it’s for school, Daddy.”
“I said no,” he snapped. “We’re not putting our DNA into some surveillance system. That’s how they track you. I’ll give you a note for school, Tiffany. But we’re not doing this.”
“We’re not putting our DNA into some surveillance system.”
I looked at my husband: we had Alexa in every room, Echo in the hallway, and a Ring camera on the porch — and I frowned.
“Greg, you let a speaker listen to you complain about your fantasy football league.”
He shook his head, jaw tight. “It’s different, Sue.”
“How? This is for school.”
“Because I said so — drop it.”
“It’s different, Sue.”
Tiffany’s face crumpled. She dropped the swab.
“Is it because you don’t love me?” she asked.
“No, baby, of course not,” I said, stepping toward her.
But Greg didn’t say a word. He picked up the kit, crushed it, and threw it in the trash. Then he turned and left the room.
That night, my daughter cried herself to sleep.
“Is it because you don’t love me?”
When you spend years in IVF — appointments, needles, and hope that doesn’t stretch far — you get to know your partner well.
I did the injections, Greg handled the paperwork. He said it was his way of “carrying weight.” I remembered his hand on my knee in the parking lot when I couldn’t stop crying.
But something about him shifted after the DNA swab incident.
That night, while Tiffany slept, Greg caught my wrist when I reached for the trash.
He said it was his way of “carrying weight.”
“Promise me you won’t do anything with that kit,” he said.
“Greg, what are you talking about?”
“We don’t need to know everything, Sue.”
***
Greg started lingering in the hallway after dinner, watching Tiffany set the table like she was some rare painting he wouldn’t see again.
One night I asked, “Everything okay?”
“We don’t need to know everything, Sue.”
“Just tired. It’s been a long week, Sue.”
Two mornings later, I saw his mug on the counter, and my mind started spinning.
Tiffany wandered in, rubbing her eyes. “Mom, can we finish my trait chart after school?”
“Of course. We’ll do that straight after your snack.”
When she left, I stood at the sink with Greg’s mug in one hand and a swab in the other. I didn’t want to be the wife who did this.
I saw his mug on the counter, and my mind started spinning.
But I didn’t want to be the mother who looked away either.
“I’m not snooping,” I said aloud. “I’m parenting.”
I scraped the rim. Sealed the tube with one of the two swabs that Greg missed when throwing the kid away.
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