Diego immediately stepped forward.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
The doctor stared intently into his eyes.
And for a moment, he said nothing.
As if he were assessing the potential damage his next words would cause.
“Mr. Rivera,” he said cautiously, “I need you to come with me.”
His mother stiffened.
“Why him alone?”
The doctor didn’t answer.
That was the third crack.
Diego followed her inside.
The door closed.
This time, the silence wasn’t just awkward.
It was suffocating.
Inside the room, Allison sat very upright.
But she no longer resembled the radiant, triumphant woman she had been twenty minutes before.
Her face was pale.
Her eyes were wide open.
Her hands trembled slightly as they rested on her stomach.
Diego’s chest tightened.
“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly. “Is the baby okay?”
The doctor turned the screen slightly toward him.
“Mr. Rivera,” she said in a calm but firm voice, “before I answer you… I need to ask you a question.”
He felt a pang of emotion.
“What kind of question?”
She didn’t blink.
“How long have you and Mrs. Allison been together?” The question took him by surprise.
“Why does it matter?” he retorted curtly. “Just tell me what’s going on.”
“It matters,” he said quietly.
A pause.
THEN—
“How long?”
Diego hesitated.
“…About eight months.”
The doctor nodded slowly.
Then he touched the screen.
“According to this ultrasound,” he said, “the pregnancy is approximately 24 weeks.”
The room fell silent.
Diego blinked.
Once.
Twice.
“It’s been… six months,” she said slowly.
“Yes.”
His brain struggled to keep up.
“No, that’s not possible,” he said quickly. “She told me…”
“She told you it was fourteen weeks,” the doctor concluded.
Allison felt her breath catch in her throat.
Diego turned slowly toward her.
“Is that true?”
She didn’t answer.
I didn’t see her.
She didn’t move.
And this silence…
That silence said it all.
“No,” he murmured.
The doctor continued, her tone now impersonal.
“There’s more.”
Diego’s heart began to pound.
“What do you mean by ‘more’?”
She turned the screen again.
Zoomed in.
“And I want you to understand this clearly,” he said. “Given how things have unfolded… the date of conception doesn’t match the timeline you just gave me.”
Those words hit harder than anything they had done before.
Diego felt the ground give way beneath his feet.
“What are you saying?” he asked, his voice strained.
The doctor held his gaze.
“I’m saying this pregnancy began before you two were in a relationship.” Heavy.
Absolute.
Diego’s hands slowly clenched into fists.
He turned to Allison.
And this time…
His voice had changed.
“Whose child is this?”
Allison finally looked up.
