His voice was low, but the microphone in my hand carried every word through the ballroom.
“You said you would tell both of them before the anniversary.”
Eric moved toward him.
“You?”
The coworker did not retreat.
“Natalie and I were together before I knew about you and her.
When she told me she was pregnant, she said the dates might make the baby mine.
She asked me to take the test.”
“He’s lying,” Natalie said.
Grant opened another section of the folder.
“The clinic appointment occurred eleven weeks ago.
The certified result was issued eight weeks ago.”
I watched Eric calculate the dates.
For months, Natalie had apparently allowed him to believe the child was his while already possessing evidence that it was not.
Eric looked at the woman who had just publicly declared their love.
“You knew?”
“I wasn’t sure,” Natalie insisted.
“Those tests can be wrong.
I was going to have another one done.”
The coworker reached into his jacket and placed his phone on the cake table.
“Then why did you send me this?”
Natalie lunged for the phone, but Grant moved it beyond her reach.
The coworker pressed the screen.
A recording began to play.
Natalie’s voice filled the ballroom.
“The baby may be yours biologically, but Eric believes it’s his.
I need you to stay quiet until I decide what to do.
He can give me the life I’m supposed to have.
If you care about the baby, you won’t ruin this.”
The recording ended.
No one moved.
Natalie stared at the phone as though she could force the words back inside it.
Eric’s coworkers avoided his eyes.
My mother lowered herself into a chair.
My father’s hand closed around the back of hers.
Eric looked smaller than he had ten minutes earlier.
“You used me,” he said.
Natalie’s expression hardened.
“Don’t act innocent.
You were sleeping with me while renewing vows with her.
You told me you were leaving.
You told me the house would be ours.”
That statement produced a second silence, colder than the first.
Eric glanced at me.
“I never said the house would be hers.”
It was a pathetic defense, and he seemed to realize it as soon as the words left his mouth.
I placed the paternity report back on the folder.
“You both lied,” I said.
“The only disagreement between you is which lie mattered more.”
Natalie faced me again.
“You planned this.”
“No.
You planned the announcement.”
“You invited him.” She pointed at the coworker.
“You invited Grant.
You wanted everyone to see this.”
