Eliza watched him go, then looked at Julian.
“Don’t make promises through them.”
“I won’t.”
The results arrived days later.
Julian was in his office when Eliza called.
For several seconds, he only stared at her name on the screen.
Then he answered.
“I have them,” she said.
His hand tightened around the phone.
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Can I come?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
When Julian arrived, he did not bring flowers, gifts, or anything expensive enough to turn the moment into a performance.
He carried only his own copy of the old medical report.
Eliza let him inside.
The boys were in another room.
Their voices drifted down the hallway in bursts of laughter and accusation.
On the kitchen table sat an envelope.
Julian remained standing.
“You read it?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Eliza slid the pages toward him.
His eyes found the first result.
Probability of paternity: greater than 99.99 percent.
Then the second.
The same.
The third.
The fourth.
The same.
Julian lowered himself into the chair.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
He had thought the resemblance in the park had prepared him.
He had thought hearing Eliza say They’re yours had prepared him.
Nothing prepared him for four laboratory confirmations arranged one beneath another.
“My sons,” he whispered.
Eliza looked down.
Julian pressed the heel of his hand against his mouth.
He did not cry dramatically.
There was no grand collapse.
His eyes simply filled while four children laughed somewhere beyond the kitchen wall.
“I missed everything.”
Eliza’s expression softened, but only slightly.
“You missed a lot.”
“Their births.”
“Yes.”
“First words.”
“Yes.”
“First steps.”
“All of it.”
He nodded because he deserved the answer exactly as she gave it.
Then he placed his old medical report beside the paternity results.
“This said none of them could exist.”
Eliza stared at the page.
