I stared at him.
“You don’t get to appear after four years and pretend you’re the injured parent.”
His control finally slipped.
“I didn’t know I was a parent.”
The words struck the hallway like something thrown.
A door downstairs opened, then quietly shut again.
Dante lowered his voice.
“You made every decision.
You decided I couldn’t know.
You decided he couldn’t know.
You decided danger followed me more closely than losing his father would follow him.
Maybe you were right.
Maybe you weren’t.
But don’t stand there and tell me I abandoned a child I never knew existed.”
I had no answer that didn’t sound like fear.
And fear had been the answer to everything for too long.
Two days later, we sat in a private clinic thirty minutes outside the city.
Dante came alone.
That mattered.
Noah thought the cotton swab was funny.
“It tickles.”
The nurse smiled.
“You’re very brave.”
Dante watched him with an expression I couldn’t read.
When it was Dante’s turn, Noah laughed.
“You gotta do it too.”
“Apparently.”
For the first time, I heard something in Dante’s voice I had almost forgotten.
Warmth.
The results took several days.
During that time, Dante did not come to the apartment.
He sent no gifts.
He posted no men outside my building.
He called once each evening at six.
Not me.
He asked whether Noah could speak to him.
The first night, I said no.
The second night, Noah heard his voice and shouted, “Truck man!”
Dante laughed.
It was the first time Noah had heard that sound from him.
It was the first time in five years I had too.
By the fourth evening, they were discussing dinosaurs.
“Tyrannosaurus is stronger,” Noah insisted.
“That sounds difficult to prove.”
“It has big teeth.”
“A compelling argument.”
Noah looked at me and whispered, “He talks funny.”
Dante heard him.
“Your mother used to say the same thing.”
I took the phone.
“Goodnight, Dante.”
His amusement faded.
“Goodnight, Elena.”
The test results arrived Friday morning.
I knew what they would say before I opened them.
Dante insisted we read them together.
