Not on the midway with ride lights spinning behind her, but in a family-law conference room above a tax-preparation office near the highway. The setting was dreary enough to force honesty by removing all glamour. There were fake ficus plants, gray carpeting, stale coffee, and a receptionist whose expression suggested she had seen every variation of human embarrassment possible before lunch.
Nia arrived with Cam and a woman named Patrice, her cousin, because she no longer trusted David to enter any important room without witnesses. Linda came with Marcy. David came alone and looked relieved to have no one at his side who might see him clearly.
Cam sat at the end of the conference table coloring a rocket-ship page while adults discussed the shape of his life.
He had changed from the fair. In daylight he looked younger, his solemnity less dramatic and more plainly childish. He wore a green dinosaur T-shirt and Velcro sneakers and asked Patrice in a whisper whether there would be juice.
Linda watched him and felt the second wave of the whole disaster hit her. The child himself was impossible to hate. He existed before her as the material result of David’s betrayal, yes, but also as a boy who liked stuffed animals and big rides and who had been forced, by adult cowardice, into a room full of legal language before kindergarten had even fully taught him to tie his shoes.
Nia looked younger too when not framed by Ferris wheel lights and exhaustion.
She had smooth brown skin, a quiet watchfulness, and the sort of face that would have been mistaken for serene by people who did not understand how often composure is simply practiced strain. She was attractive without trying hard at it, which Linda resented for maybe twelve minutes until she realized resentment toward beauty was lazier than anger toward deceit. Nia wore a plain navy blouse and black slacks, her hair pulled back, no performative distress visible. When she shook Linda’s hand there was no competition in it. Only an awkward acknowledgment that their lives had become entangled through the same man’s lies.
The paternity testing was arranged with brisk efficiency.
Cheek swabs for David and Cam, signatures, chain-of-custody forms, assurances about turnaround times. Linda sat through the process because she wanted no more blurred facts. When Cam asked why everyone was taking “special Q-tip samples,” Nia said, “Because grown-ups are making sure all the paperwork about you is true.” It was a remarkable sentence, Linda thought. Honest enough not to be insulting, gentle enough not to burden him with adult shame. David stared at the floor throughout.