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She could see the toll Alex’s absence was taking on me, and she was furious.
“I can’t believe he’s doing this,” she fumed one evening as she rocked Sarah to sleep. “He should be here with you, not hiding out at his parents’ house.”
I sighed, feeling the weight of exhaustion press down on me.
“I don’t know what happened. It’s like he’s a different person, Em. I didn’t even recognize him at the hospital.”
She put a reassuring hand on my shoulder, and I let out a shaky breath. Emily had always been my rock, but even she couldn’t fix the damage Alex’s accusations were doing to my heart.
As if his suspicion wasn’t enough, his mom called a week after he left.
I hoped she was calling to check on me or the baby, maybe even offer some support. But as soon as I picked up, her words cut through me like a knife.
“Jennifer,” she said curtly, “I’ve heard about this paternity test. Let me be clear, if that test says that baby isn’t Alex’s, I’ll make sure you’re left with nothing! I’ll do whatever it takes to see you taken to the cleaners!”
I gripped the phone, stunned by her hostility. “Mrs. Johnson, you can’t be serious. Sarah is Alex’s daughter, and I’d never do anything to hurt him,” I managed to say, though my voice shook.
“Spare me the explanations,” she snapped. “We’ll see what the test says. Until then, don’t think you’ll get anything from our family if you’ve been lying!”
Then she hung up, leaving me numb with shock. I’d always thought we had a good relationship and that she respected me. But now, it felt like I was suddenly the enemy, fighting for the right to stay in my own family.
I called Emily right after, barely able to hold back tears as I told her about the conversation.
“She’s already making threats about lawyers and money,” I said, my voice cracking. “She thinks I cheated, Em.”
Emily’s jaw tightened. “That’s unbelievable. You’ve done nothing wrong, Jenn. Let them do the test. When it proves Sarah’s Alex’s daughter, they’ll have to eat their words.”
But I wasn’t so sure. Even if the test cleared things up, could Alex and I ever go back to the way things were?
Finally, after what felt like an eternity but was only a couple of weeks, my husband called.
“The results are in,” he said, his voice lacking any warmth after we received the paternity results yesterday. He came by that evening to read them together, his face set with a mix of determination and something close to fear.
We sat down in the living room, and I could feel my heartbeat in my throat as he opened the envelope. He scanned the paper in silence, and I watched his expression shift from tense to wide-eyed with shock. His jaw dropped, and he just stared at them as he processed what they said in disbelief…
“I told you so,” I said, a surge of anger bubbling up after weeks of feeling betrayed. I let out a bitter laugh, unable to keep it contained. After everything he’d put me through, after all the hurtful accusations, he’d gotten the answer he’d demanded, and it was exactly what I’d said all along!
My husband’s face turned red. He crumpled the paper in his hands and shot me a furious look.
“You think this is funny, Jennifer?” he snapped, his voice rising. “This was hard for me, too!”
“Hard for you?” I replied, unable to keep my own voice down.
“Alex, I’ve been alone with our newborn daughter, recovering from childbirth, while you accused me of cheating. You left me here to deal with everything on my own, and your mother’s threats—”
“What threats?” he interrupted, his anger giving way to confusion.
I took a steadying breath, gathering the strength to explain.
“She called me and said she’d make sure I’d get ‘taken to the cleaners’ if Sarah wasn’t yours. She made it clear that I wasn’t welcome in this family if the test came back differently.”
Alex’s face fell, and I could see the realization dawning on him. He looked down at the crumpled paper, then back at me.
“I didn’t know. I didn’t… I didn’t realize it had gotten that far.”
A few seconds passed in silence before Emily, who had been upstairs with Sarah, came down. She looked at both of us, her gaze finally settling on Alex.
“Maybe you should leave,” she said, her tone ice-cold.