The results came back on a Friday, and Adrian called me before he called anyone else.
I knew from the first syllable. Not because of what he said but because of the half-second
before he said it, the specific silence of a man who has just read something and is working
out how to carry it into a sentence.
“They’re in,” he said.
That was all. But I already knew.
I had been at my desk reviewing the Q4 filing when the call came. I set down my pen.
“What do they say?”
“I’m not Noah’s biological father.”
The words landed quietly. Not like a bomb. More like a door closing in a room you already
knew was empty.
“How are you?” I asked.
A pause. Long enough to mean something. “I knew,” he said. “Or I suspected. But knowing
and reading it on a page are different things. They’re very diffe
