Chapter 6 - Tyler
I had held Tyler Mason the day he came home from the hospital.
Angela had been twenty-nine, unmarried, exhausted, and unwilling to name the father.
I never pushed.
I brought diapers. Formula. Frozen meals.
David built Tyler’s crib.
The memory hit so hard I had to grip the edge of the table.
“No,” I said.
Daniel watched me.
“You’re thinking what I’m thinking.”
“No.”
“Rebecca—”
“Find proof.”
He nodded.
That afternoon Angela texted me.
Lunch tomorrow? Miss you.
I stared at the words until they looked ridiculous.
I replied with one heart.
Absolutely.
At lunch she hugged me.
I let her.
She smelled like the perfume I had given her for Christmas.
“How’s David?” she asked too quickly.
“Tired.”
“Work trip was intense.”
“So I heard.”
Her fork stopped.
I smiled.
“Your retreat too?”
She recovered.
“Exactly.”
I watched the woman who had known me since sixteen lie while looking directly into my eyes.
Then I asked about Tyler.
Angela brightened.
“He’s thinking Arizona State.”
“David would like that.”
The color left her face for half a second.
“What?”
“He always liked Arizona.”
“Oh. Right.”
Her phone lit beside her plate.
DAVID COLLINS.
She flipped it over.
Too late.
I pretended not to notice.
When we left, I hugged her again.
Then I walked straight to Daniel’s car across the street.
He held up a sealed envelope.
“I got the lab result from the legal sample we discussed.”
My throat tightened.
Daniel had used publicly discarded items collected lawfully through his investigator.
The report was a probability test, not a court order.
I opened it anyway.
The conclusion sat at the bottom.
Probability of paternity: 99.98%.
David was Tyler’s father.
Then my phone rang.
It was my fertility doctor’s office.
May you like
“We found the archived file you requested,” the nurse said.
“There’s something in it your husband specifically asked us not to discuss with you without him present.”
