“The warehouse manager was changing records,” Dad said.
“Damaged shipments.
Injury reports.
Overtime.
Money disappearing.
I signed forms I shouldn’t have signed because he told us everyone did it.”
“And Caleb found out.”
Dad nodded.
“He started copying things.”
I stared at him.
“How did you know Caleb?”
Dad’s mouth tightened.
“He worked inventory at night.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He closed his eyes.
“I caught him in the records office.”
The room went silent again.
Dad told us that three nights before I came home with the pregnancy test, he had found Caleb using an office computer after his shift.
A blue-taped USB had been plugged into the machine.
Dad demanded to know what he was doing.
Caleb showed him the files.
Some of them implicated the manager.
Others made Dad look complicit.
Caleb said he was taking everything to a lawyer.
Dad panicked.
He had spent twenty-two years at that warehouse.
He had a mortgage, medical insurance, and a wife who believed her husband had built a secure life through hard work.
He imagined losing all of it.
So instead of helping Caleb, he told him to stop.
“I said he didn’t understand how the world worked,” Dad admitted.
A bitter laugh escaped me.
“You were always very good at deciding who understood the world.”
He flinched.
Mom sat down slowly.
“Did you know he was seeing our daughter?”
Dad hesitated.
That hesitation answered for him.
I stood so fast the laptop nearly slid from my knees.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“You knew his name when I came here pregnant.”
“I didn’t know he was the father.”
“But you thought he might be.”
Dad stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
Ten years of anger rearranged itself inside me.
All this time, I had remembered his question as ignorance.
Who’s the father?
But maybe it had never been a question.
Maybe it had been a test.
I asked him exactly that.
Dad’s silence lasted several seconds.
Then he said, “I wanted to hear whether you’d say his name.”
Mom covered her mouth.
I felt my son’s hand close around mine.
I didn’t cry.
