“I read the test five times. Mateo is mine. I was wrong. I let fear and anger control me.”
“That wasn’t fear, Ricardo. It was contempt.”
He lowered his eyes.
“Please let me see him. Let me hold my son.”
I tightened my arms around Mateo.
“Answer one question first.”
“Anything.”
“If Mateo is your son, why does he have the same birthmark as Javier?”
Ricardo opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
For the first time, I watched his certainty turn into fear.
“Call Javier.”
“What?”
“Call him now.”
Ricardo dialed.
Javier answered on the third ring.
Ricardo swallowed.
“The mark on your back. Where did you get it?”
There was a long silence.
Then Javier asked something that made the room feel suddenly colder.
“Does Mateo have the same mark?”
Ricardo looked at me.
“Yes.”
Javier took a slow breath.
“Then I can’t keep this secret anymore. Come to my house. Both of you. There’s something your father took to his grave, Ricardo. Something I should have told you years ago.”
The drive to Javier’s house took only twenty minutes, but it felt much longer.
Ricardo barely spoke.
I sat in the back beside Mateo while questions filled my head.
How could a birthmark connect my newborn son to my husband’s best friend?
Javier was waiting at the door when we arrived.
His eyes were red, and he held a worn brown folder.
We sat around his dining table.
He placed the folder between us.
“I need you to understand something,” he told Ricardo. “I didn’t keep quiet because I enjoyed lying to you.”
“Just tell me.”
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