Chapter 3 - MICHAEL’S QUESTION
Michael asked Robert to leave.
Not politely.
“Get out.”
Robert nodded once.
“You deserve answers after verification.”
“I deserve them now.”
“What I remember is not proof.”
Michael knocked the briefcase from Robert’s hand.
The DNA report slid across the kitchen floor.
Ethan cried from the hallway.
I stepped between the men.
“Stop.”
Michael’s anger turned toward me for half a second.
Then he saw Ethan.
He backed away.
Robert collected the papers and left through the side door.
Michael stood in the kitchen surrounded by birthday decorations and garbage stains.
“What did he mean?” I asked.
“My mother and Robert were close before she married my father.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
Thomas Reynolds had died three years earlier. He had been stern, private, and devoted to the family company. Michael spoke of him with a mixture of fear and admiration.
“Did you know about an affair?”
“No.”
“Did you know Patricia questioned Ethan’s paternity?”
Michael sat at the table.
“She started six months ago.”
My chest tightened.
“Six months?”
“She said Ethan didn’t resemble me.”
“He has your eyes.”
“She said that proved nothing.”
“What did you say?”
“That she was being cruel.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her to stop.”
“She didn’t.”
He rubbed his face.
“Then she showed me messages.”
“What messages?”
“From an account with your name. To someone called A.”
I stared at him.
“I never had an affair.”
“The messages said the timing worked because I traveled.”
“Did you ask me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Every time I asked whether there was something you needed to tell me, you said no.”
“That is not asking whether Ethan is yours.”
“I was afraid to say it.”
He had protected himself from the sentence and allowed suspicion to live between us instead.
“Did you provide DNA?”
“No.”
“Then you knew the report couldn’t be valid.”
“I didn’t know what sample she used.”
“And still you stood there.”
His face collapsed.
“Yes.”
I packed a bag for Ethan and myself.
Michael followed me upstairs.
“Where are you going?”
“My sister’s apartment.”
“You don’t have to leave.”
“I am not sleeping beside a man who watched his mother hand our child garbage because he wanted to see what happened next.”
“I didn’t know about the box.”
“You knew she planned to accuse me at his birthday.”
He reached for the suitcase.
I held it away.
“Do not make me fight you in front of him.”
His hand dropped.
Ethan stood in the bedroom doorway holding the plastic dinosaur from his cake.
“Is Dad coming?”
Michael looked at me.
I made myself answer without using our son as a weapon.
“Dad is staying here tonight. You’re coming with me.”
“Because I’m not his?”
Michael knelt.
“You are my son.”
“Grandma said no.”
“Grandma was wrong.”
“Are you sure?”
Michael’s eyes filled.
“I should have been sure before today.”
Ethan did not hug him.
We left.
That night, Patricia filed an emergency petition in probate court.
She requested suspension of Ethan’s status in the Reynolds Legacy Trust pending paternity review.
She also asked the court to remove me as his provisional trust protector because of “violent instability witnessed at the child’s birthday.”
May you like
The petition had been prepared two days before the party.
Patricia had expected me to throw something.
