I could have lied.
I could have chosen the softer version, the version in which love had simply been startled by fear.
The version in which I was a good man who made one ugly mistake in a terrible moment.
But she had already seen my face.
And I had already seen her call history.
“I was angry first,” I said.
Her eyelids trembled, but she did not cry.
She only nodded once, as if some private suspicion inside her had finally received its answer.
Then she got into the car.
I drove faster than I should have, though every red light still seemed designed to test me.
Lucie sat rigidly, both hands over her stomach, breathing through each wave of pain.
Between one intersection and the next, my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket.
I ignored it.
Then it buzzed again.
And again.
At the next red light, I pulled it out, expecting work, expecting anything ordinary.
It was my mother.
Three messages.
Are you home yet?
Call me before you speak to Lucie.
Please, Adrien. There are things you need to know.
I stared at the screen until the light turned green and a horn sounded behind us.
Lucie turned her head slowly.
“Who is it?” she asked.
“My mother,” I said.
Something changed in her face then.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
As if a small missing piece had slid into place.
“She called me tonight,” Lucie said.
I tightened my grip on the wheel.
“When?”
“Around nine. Before the pain got bad.”
Her voice was thin, but steady enough to make me afraid of what came next.
“She said I should not trap you with a child if I was still unsure about our marriage.”
For a second, the road disappeared behind a wash of headlights.
I heard my own breath, harsh and uneven, inside the closed car.
“She said what?”
Lucie looked out the windshield.
The hospital sign appeared ahead, blue and white, too bright against the night.
“She said men sometimes need proof before they believe they are fathers.”
My stomach turned.
Not because the sentence was shocking.
Because I recognized it.
My mother had said something similar weeks earlier, smiling over coffee, pretending concern was wisdom.
She had asked whether Lucie seemed distant.
Whether pregnancy made women emotional.
Whether I had ever thought about a paternity test, just to silence doubt before it began.
I had told her not to be ridiculous.
But I had not told Lucie.
I had kept it small.
Harmless.
A family irritation not worth bringing into our home.
