“Good.”
“Please. Please let me hold him. Let me come home.”
“Call Michael.”
I looked at Aaron. He was crying openly.
“Aaron, one question. Answer it honestly.”
“Anything.”
“Then why does our son have Michael’s birthmark?”
“Start with the birthmark.”
His face went blank. Whatever apology he’d rehearsed died in his throat.
“Call Michael.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Call him.”
“Elena, I don’t even know what I’m asking.”
“Then start with the birthmark.”
For a moment, he didn’t move. I held out my hand.
“Give me the phone.”
That did it. Aaron pulled it from his pocket and called.
“Tell him yes.”
Michael answered on the third ring.
“Aaron?”
“That birthmark,” Aaron said. “The one on your back. Where did you get it?”
Silence. Then Michael exhaled.
“Is the baby there?”
“You need to come over.”
I looked at Aaron. “Tell him yes.”
Aaron swallowed.
“Yes.”
Another silence.
Then Michael said, “You need to come over. Both of you.”
“Your father was my father too.”
****
An hour later, Diana stayed with the children while Aaron and I sat across from Michael at his kitchen table.
He looked at Aaron.
“Our father had the same mark.”
Aaron went completely still.
“How long have you known?”
“What did you say?”
Michael’s eyes dropped to the table.
“Your father was my father too.”
I was the first one to speak.
“Your father knew too.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since I was seventeen.”
Aaron stared at him. “You knew?”
Michael nodded.
“Your father knew too,” I said.
“He made me promise.”
“Yes.”
“And he made you keep it from Aaron?”
Michael rubbed both hands over his face.
“He made me promise. Said I could be part of Aaron’s life as his friend, but never as his brother.”
“I was burying my father, Aaron.”
“Even after he died?” I asked.
Michael looked at Aaron.
“After our father died, you were the only family I had left. I’d already kept the truth from you for years. I was terrified that if I told you then, you’d hate me for lying and I’d lose you too.”
Aaron pushed back from the table.
“That’s why you were like that at the funeral.”
“You have a lot to talk about.”
Michael’s face crumpled.
“I was burying my father, Aaron. And I had to stand there pretending he wasn’t mine.”
Aaron covered his face with both hands.
I watched him for a moment. Then I stood.
He looked up. “Elena….”
“I got the answer I came for.”
“You have a lot to talk about.”
“Wait.”
But I was already reaching for my coat.
“I got the answer I came for.”
“I betrayed you.”
****
Aaron came to Diana’s the next morning.
I met him at the door.
“Elena, I was wrong. About everything. Please come home. I’ll do therapy. Anything.”
I looked down the hallway at the bassinet where our son was sleeping. Then at Aaron.
“I begged you to stay.”
“No.”
“Elena, please.”
“One birthmark was enough for you to believe I betrayed you. My word wasn’t enough to make you believe I hadn’t. I had to prove myself to my own husband.”
“I was angry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I begged you to stay. And you walked out.”
I turned toward the bassinet.
He reached for my hand. I pulled it back.
“You didn’t need proof to condemn me. You needed proof to believe me. I can’t build a life on that.”
Behind me, my son began to fuss.
Aaron said my name again.
I turned toward the bassinet instead.
I was choosing myself.
For years, keeping Aaron happy had been easier than disappointing him. I had swallowed my doubts, agreed to one more pregnancy, and made myself smaller to keep our family together.
But somewhere between the hospital room where he abandoned me and the doorway where I finally told him no, something in me had changed.
I finally understood that protecting my family didn’t mean sacrificing myself to keep it together.
I lifted my son into my arms and walked away without looking back.
For the first time in years, I wasn’t choosing Aaron.
I was choosing myself.
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