“This baby can’t be our blood.”

The words sucked the warmth from the room. A nurse by the monitors discreetly slipped out, sensing a storm she wanted no part of.

“Mom, what are you talking about?” Caleb stammered, his voice weak.

Vivien’s voice dropped, becoming conspiratorial, pulling her son into her circle of doubt. “Look at her, Caleb. Hazel eyes. Olive skin. She doesn’t look like anyone in our family. She is not a Monroe. I don’t know whose child this is, but she is not ours.”

The accusation was so audacious, so cruel, it left me momentarily stunned. To say this here, now, while I was still healing from the war my body had just waged… it was monstrous. Caleb turned to me, his eyes pleading, asking the question he didn’t have the courage to voice: Is there any truth to this?