His reaction frightened me.
For one awful moment, I wondered whether he thought Lily wasn’t his.
Or whether he had noticed something the doctors hadn’t mentioned.
“She’s your daughter, Ethan. What are you talking about?”
Then tears appeared in his eyes.
“No. Eloise, that isn’t what I mean.”
He dropped into the chair beside my bed and covered his face.
When he finally looked at me again, he seemed exhausted.
“That came out completely wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Then tell me what you mean.”
Ethan looked toward Lily.
**“There’s something you need to know about me.”**
I stared at him.
“Something I should have told you a long time ago.”
“How long?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“I kept convincing myself it didn’t matter.”
Then he looked at our daughter again.
**“Now it matters.”**
“Ethan, please. Just tell me.”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
He took a shaky breath.
“I’ve been afraid to tell you for four years. But after seeing Lily, I can’t keep pretending this part of my past doesn’t exist.”
Before he could explain, the hospital-room door opened.
I expected Nurse Stella.
Instead, my mother-in-law, Sadie, walked in carrying a pale pink gift bag.
Sadie and I had never been particularly close.
She entered smiling, obviously excited to meet her granddaughter.
Then she saw Ethan’s face.
Her smile vanished.
“Ethan? What happened?”
Her eyes moved from her son to me.
Then to Lily.
Something about her reaction immediately reminded me of the baby shower three weeks earlier.
I had caught Sadie looking at an old envelope inside her purse.
She had quickly folded it closed.
When I asked about it, she laughed.
**“Just an old thing from my past.”**
I hadn’t questioned her further.
Ethan rarely spoke about his childhood either.
He never showed me baby photographs.
Whenever I asked about his father, Levi, he would simply say,
**“Dad’s a good man.”**
Then he changed the subject.
Now Ethan looked at his mother.
“Mom.”
Sadie slowly approached the bed.
She leaned toward Lily.
The moment she saw behind the baby’s ear, her hand flew to her mouth.
Ethan whispered,
**“Mom. She has it.”**
Sadie’s eyes filled with tears.
I looked between them.
“Has what?”
Ethan carefully brushed Lily’s dark hair aside.
Behind her ear was a tiny, pale, triangular birthmark.
It was barely larger than my fingernail.
“That?” I asked. “It’s a birthmark.”
Ethan nodded.
**“I had one exactly like it.”**
I stared at him.
“Same place. Same shape. Mom has a picture. Mine faded before I turned five.”
Sadie took my hand.
Then she said something that confused me even more.
**“That mark runs in the family. Just not in Levi’s family.”**
