Chapter 12 - The DNA result answered one question and created another
The result arrived twelve days later.
Ethan was the father.
Probability greater than 99.9 percent.
Claire read it first.
Then sat alone for almost an hour.
She had imagined that knowing would simplify things.
It did not.
Now every month Serena had stolen from them carried different weight.
Ethan had missed the early ultrasound.
The first prenatal appointment.
The first time Claire heard the heartbeat.
Months in which Claire believed the father of her child had deliberately chosen another woman and shut her out.
Months in which Ethan believed Claire had vanished because she regretted trying again.
He came to Claire’s attorney’s office after she agreed to tell him.
She handed him the report.
Ethan read the page.
Then sat down.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Finally:
“I’m going to have a son?”
Claire nodded.
Ethan covered his mouth.
He cried quietly.
Not dramatically.
Not as though DNA automatically restored a romance.
He cried because fatherhood had already begun without him.
Then he asked:
“What do you want from me?”
It was the right question.
Not:
When are you coming back?
Not:
Are we together now?
Not:
How do I fix this?
Claire answered:
“I want you to be his father.”
Ethan nodded.
“And us?”
Claire looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
That hurt.
But he accepted it.
Serena had controlled too much of their story already.
May you like
Neither of them would respond by forcing the ending in the opposite direction.
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