Three Months Earlier
“Tiffany, slow down,” I laughed, catching the edge of her backpack before it toppled a stack of mail. “You’re like a one-girl tornado!”
She yanked a crumpled kit from the front compartment and waved it like a prize.
“Mom! We’re doing genetics! We have to swab our families and mail it in, like real scientists!”
“Okay, Dr. Tiffany. Shoes off and wash your hands first, then we’ll see what this is all about.”
“You’re like a one-girl tornado!”
She darted off. I was still smiling when Greg came through the door.
“Hey, babe,” I said.
“Hey.” He was already distracted. He kissed my cheek absentmindedly and headed for the fridge.
Tiffany reappeared and jumped up to hug him.
He was already distracted.
“Hey, bug. What’s all this about?” he 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!”
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.
“I need a sample from you and Mom!”
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.”
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.
“We’re not doing this.”
“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.”
Tiffany’s face crumpled. She dropped the swab.
“This is for school.”
“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.
**
Greg didn’t say a word.
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.
When you spend years in IVF…
“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.”
