David swallowed. “We dated before your mother and I were married. Then, years later, we ran into each other again.” Megan’s expression changed at the mention of Laura.
David saw it and hated himself instantly. Laura was dead, which meant every truth involving her arrived without the possibility of response. Megan protected her mother’s memory fiercely, not sentimentally but territorially, as if each photograph and story belonged to a nation whose borders she had been appointed to defend. “When?” Megan asked.
Sarah answered this time. “A long time ago.” “That is not a date.” Connor stepped closer to his mother.
“Why does he care when I was born?” The question fell cleanly through every evasive option. Sarah’s face crumpled for one second before she rebuilt it. David had forgotten that about her, the way emotion crossed her features honestly before discipline caught up.
“Connor,” she said, “I need you to stay calm.” Connor actually laughed. “That is what people say right before they tell you something insane.” Megan turned toward David.
“Are you saying you think he is your son?” There are sentences that, once spoken, change the temperature of a room permanently. David looked at his daughter. She had gone from prom-night excitement to adult terror in less than three minutes, still wearing the emerald dress Laura never got to see, still standing beside the boy she had been dating for eleven weeks.
David wanted to tell her no. Every fatherly instinct begged him to restore the evening by denying the possibility. But denial was the original sin of the whole problem. “I do not know,” he said.
Connor took a step backward. Megan did too, but in the opposite direction, away from Connor. The movement was small and involuntary. Connor saw it.