I wrote his initials.
And then I mailed them.
***
The results came the following Tuesday.
“I’m not snooping.”
Greg was in the shower. I opened the email like it was a bomb about to go off.
And it did.
I stared at the “0% DNA Shared” line for so long, I forgot how to blink.
But it wasn’t the absence of the match that shook me.
It was the presence of one.
Mike. Tiffany’s godfather. Greg’s best friend since college. He was a man who had keys to my house.
It wasn’t the absence of the match that shook me.
I shut my laptop. My legs moved before my thoughts did. I walked into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub, numb, staring at the tiled floor.
I sat there until the water stopped and the curtain scraped open.
“Sue?”
I stood.
“We need to talk tonight,” I said. “Don’t stay late at work.”
I shut my laptop.
After school, I packed Tiffany’s overnight bag and dropped her off at my sister’s house.
“Is Dad coming?” she asked, hugging her unicorn pillow.
“Not this time, sweetie. We have to work late tonight, so I thought you’d like some time with Auntie Karen.”
That evening, I waited in the kitchen.
Greg came in. “Sue?”
I slid my phone across the table — the results open.
“Is Dad coming?”
He looked at the screen. “Please… Sue…”
“Tell me why you have zero DNA in common with my daughter.”
Greg gripped the back of a chair. “She’s mine.”
“Sure… but not biologically. Right?”
His jaw flexed. “I couldn’t give you a baby, Sue. I tried so many times. And I failed. I was the reason we couldn’t do it.”
“Please… Sue…”
“So what, Greg? You borrowed Mike’s… genes without asking me?”
He didn’t answer.
“Did you forge my signature at the clinic?”
He stared at the floor. I tapped the screen once, right on ‘0% DNA Shared.’
Greg finally spoke. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always had a choice. You just didn’t like the ones that required honesty.”
“You borrowed Mike’s… genes without asking me?”
***
I drove to Mike and Lindsay’s the next morning. Lindsay answered the door in gray leggings, coffee in hand.
“Sue? You look like you haven’t slept. What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to Mike. Now.”
Something in my face must have told her this wasn’t casual. She stepped aside.
Mike came down the hallway. He stopped when he saw me.
“You knew? All this time?! You knew the truth about my daughter?”
“You look like you haven’t slept. What’s going on?”
He ran a hand over his face. “Sue…”
“Answer me.”
“I knew.”
Lindsay’s head snapped toward him. “You knew what?“
Mike looked at me, not her. “Greg was falling apart. He felt useless. He said you wanted a baby more than anything, and he couldn’t give you one. He asked for help.”
“You knew what?“
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