Chapter 4 - THE PATERNITY TEST
I turned.
Daniel stood in the doorway.
No anger now.
Something colder.
“What does it mean?”
He didn't answer.
“Daniel.”
“You know what it means.”
“No. I know what the words mean. I want to hear you say it.”
He looked exhausted.
“I had doubts.”
I laughed.
I couldn't help it.
“About whether she's yours?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His silence told me.
I stood.
“Because of David?”
Dr. David Chen had been my colleague at St. Matthew's.
We had worked together for six years.
He was gay.
Married.
Daniel knew both facts.
Or should have.
“You were spending a lot of time with him.”
“We worked in the same emergency department.”
“You texted at night.”
“He was covering my patients after I got pregnant.”
Daniel looked away.
I understood.
This had never been about evidence.
He needed me to be unfaithful.
Because then he wasn't the villain.
“Did you test her?”
“No.”
“Did you test anything?”
“No.”
“Then what does resolve mean?”
“I was going to ask after she was born.”
My daughter moved again.
I felt suddenly protective in a way that had nothing to do with physical danger.
“You were planning to question her paternity as leverage in a divorce.”
“I was protecting myself.”
There it was.
The sentence at the center of our marriage.
Daniel was always protecting himself.
Even from consequences he created.
I closed the laptop.
“Get out.”
“This is my house.”
“No.”
I surprised both of us.
I stood.
“This is Rosemary's house.”
Daniel stared.
“And according to your father, eventually mine.”
He stepped closer.
“You think Dad choosing you makes you special?”
“No.”
“For God's sake, Maggie, he pitied you.”
That hurt.
Daniel saw it.
And because he was losing, he used it.
“He knew you couldn't keep me happy.”
Something inside me became very calm.
“Were you happy when I found investors for you in 2018?”
He froze.
“What?”
“When Hollis Development was three weeks from missing payroll.”
“I found those investors.”
“No.”
I named them.
One.
Two.
Three.
Daniel stared.
I had called them.
Harold had helped.
Daniel never knew.
“Were you happy when I covered the payroll gap with money from my grandmother's estate?”
His face changed.
“You said that was a family loan.”
“It was.”
“To your family.”
I stepped closer.
“Were you happy when I spent nine months helping your father through chemotherapy while you attended conferences?”
“Maggie—”
“When I handled your mother's surgery?”
“Stop.”
“When I miscarried alone?”
“STOP.”
The house went silent.
I didn't raise my voice.
That was the strange part.
“I did keep you happy, Daniel.”
I looked at him.
“For eleven years.”
Then I said the thing that finally set me free.
“I just didn't realize happiness was another service you expected me to provide.”
He left.
This time, I didn't ask where he was going.
At 6:40 the next morning, Rosemary found me asleep at the kitchen table.
She covered me with a blanket.
When I woke, there was coffee beside me.
Decaf.
She sat across from me.
“I called a lawyer.”
I rubbed my face.
“For Daniel?”
“For you.”
I stared.
“Rosemary—”
“My son forged my signature.”
“We don't know that.”
“I know my son.”
Her eyes softened.
“And so do you.”
I started crying.
Quietly.
Rosemary reached across the table.
“You don't have to protect him from what he did.”
May you like
That sentence changed everything.
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