My Husband Made Me Take a DNA Test While I Was Pregnant With His Baby novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Tag
On the morning of her first positive test, Kristin tags Nils as the man who lent her a baby, and at Sunday brunch Nils demands a paternity test and Britta signs his divorce papers, dated three days before she told him anything.
At 7:40 on Sunday morning, Kristin Lund, my friend who had brought me soup all winter, posted her first ultrasound.
I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub with a drugstore test in my hand.
It had two pink lines.
After four years of trying, it had two pink lines.
I was still staring at it when my phone buzzed with a tag.
The photo showed a gray scan, a gold-framed date stamp, and the oak crib my husband had built in his shop in the spring.
Nils had told me that crib was for the day it finally happened to us.
Under the photo, Kristin had written: "Thank you to my oldest friend, Nils Ekdahl, who lent me exactly what I needed. Due April 13!"
There were four hundred likes already.
I stood up and read the date on the scan.
October 6. Thirteen weeks and zero days.
I knew how weeks counted. I had tracked them on three different apps for four years.
In August, Nils had told me he was driving Kristin to her clinic on the 18th for a donor appointment.
I had hugged her about it in the driveway.
The 18th of August to the 6th of October was seven weeks.
Not thirteen.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Kristin: "Bri, don't read the comments! It's nothing, I swear. Come see the nursery today, I'll make coffee."
I walked into the kitchen with the phone in one hand and the test in the other.
Nils was standing at the stove with his back to me, scrambling eggs.
"You were the donor," I said.
He didn't turn around. "It's not what it looks like."
"It looks like your name under a picture of a baby."
"It was a cup, Bri." He scraped the pan. "A clinic cup and a freezer. I never touched her. She had nobody else to ask, and you were so tired of hearing about babies, I didn't want to put it on you."
He said it smoothly, and he had the whole speech ready.
"You built her the crib," I said.
"She's my oldest friend."
"You built that crib for us."
"Britta." He turned the burner off. "Let's not do this before Mom's. Please. Eat something."
I put the test in my coat pocket and said nothing.
Brunch at Birgit Ekdahl's house was at eleven.
It was the same long table every Sunday, with the white tablecloth and the good coffee cups.
Nils's mother had put out seven plates.
His brother Anders's chair stayed empty, as it had since their father's funeral in July.
Birgit said Kristin was the only one of us who had even thought to drive him to the airport that day.
Kristin sat on Birgit's right, glowing, with one hand on her stomach.
When I came in she stood up and hugged me for a long time.
"I'm so glad you came," she said into my hair. "Nothing is going to change between us."
Birgit tapped a spoon on her glass.
"A toast," she said. "To our first grandchild, and to the women who make a family."
She looked straight at me. "Even the ones who couldn't."
The table laughed politely.
I took the test out of my pocket and set it beside my plate.
"I'm pregnant," I said. "I found out at seven this morning."
Nobody picked up a fork.
Kristin's smile stayed where it was.
Birgit reached across and turned the stick toward herself with two fingers.
Nils put his coffee down.
"Four years," he said slowly. "And it happens the same morning she posts."
"Nils."
"No." He looked at the table, not at me. "I'm not raising a baby on a coincidence. You'll take a paternity test, Britta. Before I say another word to you."
My mouth went dry.
"You think it isn't yours."
"I think I want to know."
He reached into his jacket and took out a folded packet of papers.
He slid it across the white cloth to me, with a pen on top.
"And if it's mine, we'll sort it out after. If it isn't, you'll have already signed."
Birgit said nothing at all. She sipped her coffee.
Kristin put a hand over her mouth, and her eyes were wet.
I picked the packet up.
It was a divorce petition, filled out in full, with his signature at the bottom.
"I'll sign it," I said. "I'll take your test."
I looked at Kristin.
"And you should hold your own scan up to the light," I said. "It says thirteen weeks. He handed you that cup on August 18th."
"Dates drift, Bri," Kristin said gently. "Every doctor says so."
"Not by six weeks."
"Sit down and be happy for me," said Birgit.
I didn't sit.
So I picked up the pen.
My hand was steady when I signed. I turned back to the first page to date it.
It was already dated.
Thursday.
Three days ago, before I had even bought the test.
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