***
Greg 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?”
“We don’t need to know everything, Sue.”
“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. We’ll do that straight after your snack.”
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.
I saw his mug on the counter, and my mind started spinning.
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.
***
The results came the following Tuesday.
“I’m not snooping.”
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. Tiffany’s godfather. Greg’s best friend since college. He was a man who had keys to my house.
It wasn’t the absence of the match that shook me.
