Helen stared at my face like she was trying to inspect a crack in a foundation. “Alright,” she said quietly, but her tone definitely didn’t match the look in her eyes.
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” I mumbled.
I turned the water on scalding hot and did my best to choke down the rising panic. I just kept thinking: if I wasn’t their dad by blood, then what the hell was I?
By lunchtime, the clinic had called my phone three times. Not leaving a message or a casual “call back when you’re free,” but the kind of frantic calling that means they need to catch you before you do something crazy.
The nurse refused to tell me anything over the phone, just repeating, “The doctor really needs to speak with you in person.”
Helen asked if she should ride along with me.
“No,” I blurted out. “It’s probably nothing to worry about.”
I drove over there with a death grip on the steering wheel, hearing the doc’s words from earlier ringing in my head like a fire alarm.
Completely impossible.
Out in the parking lot, I just sat in my truck and stared at my own face in the rearview mirror.
