After Four Daughters, My Husband Finally Got the Son He’d Been Begging For – But When He Held Our Newborn Boy for the First Time, His Words Made My Stomach Drop

Part Five: The Results

A full week after I’d mailed off the swab, the results finally landed in my inbox. I opened the PDF right there at Paulina’s kitchen table, my hands considerably steadier than I’d actually expected them to be by that point.

Probability of paternity: 99.99%.

I read that number through twice, just to make absolutely sure I wasn’t imagining it.

For one brief, almost stupid second, pure relief flooded through my whole body first. Then something considerably colder swallowed that relief whole, almost immediately after.

A week earlier, I would have called Grayson the instant I saw that number appear on my screen. I would have cried into the phone, told him we were fine, begged him to come home so the two of us could put this entire ugly week firmly behind us.

My thumb genuinely hovered over his name in my contacts list for a long, suspended moment.

Then I remembered him yanking his hand roughly out of mine in that hospital room. I remembered begging him, more than once, to just look at me while he walked steadily toward the door instead of turning back.

I wasn’t going to beg him for anything this time.

I forwarded the results file directly to him. No subject line attached. No message of any kind. Just the document itself, left to speak entirely on its own.

He was standing on Paulina’s porch within the hour.

I opened the door and stayed planted firmly in the frame. I didn’t invite him inside the house.

“Teresa.” His voice actually broke on my name. “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”

“You saw the file,” I said, flat.

“I saw it. I’ve read it through four separate times already.”

“Good.”

“Please,” he said. “Please just let me hold him. Let me come home to both of you.”

I looked at him for a long, silent moment. “One question first. Answer it honestly, Grayson.”

“Anything. Ask me anything at all.”

“Then why does our son have Dorian’s exact birthmark?”

His whole face went completely blank. Whatever apology he’d clearly rehearsed on the drive over died somewhere in his throat before it ever reached his mouth.

“Call Dorian,” I said.

“What?”

“You heard exactly what I said. Call him. Right now.”

“Teresa, I don’t even know what I’d actually be asking him.”

“Then start with the birthmark,” I said. “Everything else can follow naturally from there.”

For a moment he simply stood frozen on the porch. I held my hand out toward him, waiting. That seemed to break whatever had him locked in place — he pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed.

Dorian picked up on the third ring. “Grayson?”

“That birthmark,” Grayson said, his voice noticeably tight. “The one on your lower back. Where exactly did you get it?”

Silence on the other end of the line. Then a long, slow exhale from Dorian.

“Is the baby there with you?” Dorian asked, his voice suddenly very careful.

I looked at Grayson and nodded once. “Tell him yes.”

Grayson swallowed hard. “Yes. He’s here.”

Another pause, considerably longer this time.

Then Dorian said, quiet but entirely certain, “You need to come over here. Both of you, together.”