His face lost every hint of color. His voice, when it came, didn’t belong to the man I married.
“No.”
“Huh?” Tiffany blinked. “But it’s for school, Daddy.”
“I said no,” he snapped. “We’re not putting our DNA into some surveillance system. That’s how they track you. I’ll give you a note for school, Tiffany. But we’re not doing this.”
I looked at my husband — we had Alexa in every room, Echo in the hallway, and a Ring camera on the porch — and I frowned.
“We’re not doing this.”
“Greg, you let a speaker listen to you complain about your fantasy football league.”
He shook his head, jaw tight.
“It’s different, Sue.”
“How? This is for school.”
“Because I said so — drop it.”
Tiffany’s face crumpled. She dropped the swab.
“This is for school.”
“Is it because you don’t love me?” she asked.
“No, baby, of course not,” I said, stepping toward her.
But Greg didn’t say a word. He picked up the kit, crushed it, and threw it in the trash. Then he turned and left the room.
That night, my daughter cried herself to sleep.
**
Greg didn’t say a word.
When you spend years in IVF — appointments, needles, and hope that doesn’t stretch far — you get to know your partner well.
I did the injections, Greg handled the paperwork. He said it was his way of “carrying weight.”
I remembered his hand on my knee in the parking lot when I couldn’t stop crying.
**
But something about him shifted after the DNA swab incident.
That night, while Tiffany slept, Greg caught my wrist when I reached for the trash.
When you spend years in IVF…
“Promise me you won’t do anything with that kit,” he said.
“Greg, what are you talking about?”
“We don’t need to know everything, Sue.”
**
He started lingering in the hallway after dinner, watching Tiffany set the table like she was some rare painting he wouldn’t see again.
