It did not.
In the ninth month, Daniel met Madison Cole at a mutual friend's rooftop birthday. Madison was twenty-eight then, brunette waves, green eyes, a laugh that made rooms rearrange themselves around her. She worked in nonprofit development, raising money for coastal conservation with a competence that made rich donors feel virtuous. Daniel felt, in the space of one conversation about marsh tides and grant cycles, a shift he did not immediately name as betrayal because betrayal, at that stage, still liked to call itself chemistry.
He dated both women for six weeks without telling either.
Ava found out the way people often find out: a photo tagged on social media, Daniel's hand at the small of Madison's back at a seafood restaurant Ava had once loved, the caption Our favorite spot as if ownership could be established by hashtag. Ava confronted him on a Thursday night in her apartment while rain hammered the historic district. Daniel cried. He said he had been confused. He said Ava deserved better. He said he needed space to figure out what he wanted. He moved his toothbrush out the same night and left a sweatshirt she later threw away without ceremony.
What he did not know — what neither of them knew for another three weeks — was that Ava was already pregnant.
She confirmed it alone in a pharmacy bathroom downtown, two pink lines on a plastic stick, platinum hair pulled back, hands shaking against the cheap tile. She called Daniel from the sidewalk afterward. He answered on the second ring, voice careful, as if he expected anger about Madison and not biology.
"I'm pregnant," Ava said. "It's yours. I've been with no one else. You can ask for a test when the baby is born if you need paper to believe me. Right now I need you to decide whether you're going to be a ghost or a father."
Daniel went quiet for so long she thought the call had dropped. When he spoke, he sounded like a man standing at the edge of a roof he had not meant to climb.