Chapter 4
Waiting for a paternity result is a special kind of punishment.
Every hour becomes a courtroom.
Every memory becomes evidence.
At my mother’s house, I slept in my old room beneath a shelf of basketball trophies and dust.
I was thirty-two years old, married, employed, responsible.
And I cried into a pillow like a boy.
Mom didn’t knock much.
She came in with tea.
With soup.
With silence.
The third night, she sat on the edge of the bed.
“Do you want me to hate her for you?”
I stared at the ceiling.
“Can you?”
“I can try.”
I almost smiled.
Then it vanished.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“That’s allowed.”
“I hate her.”
“That’s allowed too.”
“I miss her.”
Mom sighed.
“That’s usually the part that makes betrayal cruel.”
Nia called fourteen times the first day.
Six the second.
By the third, she stopped.
That scared me more.
Jacob texted once.
I did not answer.
His message said:
I never wanted to hurt you. I just need to know the truth too.
I threw my phone across the bed.
Mom picked it up and placed it on the nightstand.
“Don’t break expensive things because cheap people made a mess.”
This time I did smile.
Barely.
On the fourth day, Nia’s mother called me.
Denise had never liked me.
She thought I was too serious.
Too ordinary.
Not ambitious enough for her daughter.
“Marcus,” she said, “you need to stop punishing Nia.”
I sat up.
“Excuse me?”
“She just had a baby.”
“I know. I was there when another man came to see him.”
“She was confused.”
“She lied.”
“She was protecting her peace.”
I laughed so hard it scared me.
“My entire life is burning down, and you’re calling it her peace?”
Denise lowered her voice.
“You men always make everything about ownership.”
I stood.
“No. This is about truth.”
“You raised your voice at her in the hospital.”
“She named the baby after her ex.”
“That name was important to her.”
My chest went cold.
“Why?”
Silence.
I gripped the phone.
“Denise. Why was Jacob’s name important?”
She exhaled.
“I shouldn’t have called.”
“Why?”
“Ask Nia.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the screen.
Mom watched from the doorway.
“What?”
“Her mother knows something.”
Mom’s eyes sharpened.
“Then stop waiting alone.”
An hour later, I was at the hospital.
Nia was being discharged.
She looked smaller in regular clothes, holding the baby carrier like it weighed more than her body.
Her eyes widened when she saw me.
“Marcus.”
I looked at the baby.
His cap was gone.
Good.
“Why did your mother say Jacob’s name was important?”
Nia’s face changed.
Not guilt this time.
Grief.
“Nia.”
She looked around the busy discharge area.
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
She hesitated.
“My apartment.”
Our apartment.
Except it didn’t feel like ours anymore.
Mom drove behind us.
I followed Nia’s car while my hands shook on the steering wheel.
At every red light, I watched the baby carrier through her back window.
That tiny head.
That sleeping body.
Maybe mine.
Maybe not.
Still innocent.
Still caught in the wreckage adults made.
At the apartment, Nia carried him inside.
The nursery door was open.
The walls were pale blue.
The crib I built stood beside the window.
Above it were wooden letters.
J-A-C-O-B.
I had never seen them.
I had installed shelves two weeks earlier, and those letters had not been there.
“When did you put those up?” I asked.
“After you left the hospital.”
The words hit hard.
“Bold choice.”
She flinched.
Then she sat on the couch.
The baby slept in the carrier between us like a judge.
Nia twisted her fingers.
“I didn’t name him after my ex because I loved him more.”
“Then why?”
She looked at me.
“Because Jacob saved my life.”
I went still.
“What?”
She swallowed.
“When I was nineteen, before you knew me, I was in a car with my cousin. We crashed. The car caught fire. Jacob pulled me out.”
I stared at her.
“You never told me that.”
“I never told anyone much.”
“Why?”
“Because my cousin died.”
Her voice cracked.
“And everyone said I should have died too.”
The anger inside me stumbled.
Nia wiped her eyes.
“Jacob was the only person who didn’t treat me like a ghost. He sat with me through surgery. Through panic attacks. Through guilt. I thought naming the baby Jacob would honor the person who helped me survive.”
I tried to breathe.
“That explains the name.”
She nodded.
May you like
“It doesn’t explain the lies.”
“No,” she whispered. “It doesn’t.”
