**
He 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?”
“Greg, what are you talking about?”
“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,” I said. “We’ll do that straight after your snack.”
“It’s been a long week, Sue.”
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.
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. I wrote his initials.
And then I mailed them.
**
“I’m not snooping.”
The results came the following Tuesday.
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.
The results came the following Tuesday.
Tiffany’s godfather. Greg’s best friend since college. He was a man who had keys to my house.
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. He looked at the screen.
“Is Dad coming?”
“Please… Sue…”
“Tell me why you have zero DNA in common with my daughter,” I said.
Greg gripped the back of a chair.
“She’s mine,” he whispered.
“Sure… but not biologically. Right?”
His jaw flexed.
“Please… Sue…”
