Chapter 2 - It Was a Paternity-Test Authorization
Adam told her three hours later.
Not in the kitchen.
Not while Diane was still there.
Rachel took Noah upstairs, locked the bedroom door, fed him, changed him, and called her sister to come stay nearby in case she needed somewhere else to sleep.
Only after Noah was settled did Rachel allow Adam inside.
He stood near the door.
Rachel sat in an armchair with the baby sleeping against her.
“What did you sign?”
Adam looked down.
“A consent form.”
“For what?”
His pause told her the answer was worse than ordinary paperwork.
“A paternity test.”
Rachel stared.
For several seconds, she genuinely believed she had misunderstood him.
“A what?”
Adam forced himself to say it again.
“A private paternity test for Noah.”
The room seemed to narrow.
Rachel looked down at the infant against her chest.
Then back at her husband.
“When?”
“The night he was born.”
Her face changed.
Noah’s birth had been difficult.
Twenty-two hours of labor.
An emergency C-section after his heart rate became concerning.
Rachel had been exhausted, frightened, medicated, and barely awake when they finally placed her son beside her.
Adam had cried.
He had kissed her forehead.
He had whispered:
“He’s perfect.”
And sometime during those same hours, he had signed a document asking a laboratory to confirm whether Noah was actually his son.
Rachel’s voice became almost inaudible.
“You tested him while I was in the hospital?”
“The sample wasn’t taken that night.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Adam swallowed.
“I signed the authorization that night. The cheek swab was done the next morning.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Who took it?”
“A private laboratory technician Diane arranged.”
Rachel’s expression hardened.
Of course.
“Did the hospital know?”
“No. It wasn’t hospital testing. The technician met me in a private family lounge after Noah had been discharged from the nursery back to us.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
Adam continued quickly.
“It was noninvasive. Just a cheek swab. He was completely safe.”
“Stop.”
He stopped.
She was not worried he had physically harmed Noah.
She was trying to understand how the man sitting beside her hospital bed had secretly wondered whether the child she had carried for nine months belonged to someone else.
Then the obvious question.
“What was the result?”
Adam’s eyes filled.
“He’s mine.”
Rachel stared.
“Obviously.”
“Rachel—”
“How long have you known?”
“Since he was three days old.”
Noah was four months old now.
Rachel felt something inside her drop.
“You have known for four months that the test proved you were his father.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me there had been a test.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Adam looked miserable.
“Because once the result came back, I realized what I had done.”
Rachel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So the truth made you ashamed, and your solution was to hide the truth from me.”
Adam said nothing.
Again.
The habit was becoming clear.
Then Rachel asked:
“Why did you doubt me?”
Adam finally looked at her.
“My mother showed me something.”
Rachel’s expression changed.
“What?”
“Messages.”
And suddenly Diane’s sentence from downstairs returned.
She trapped you with that child.
The paternity test had not begun in the hospital.
May you like
It had begun much earlier.
---
