The silence in the room was deafening. It wasn't the peaceful quiet of a sleeping child; it was the heavy, suffocating silence of a secret finally being unraveled. I stared at Leo, my heart hammering so hard against my ribs I was certain he could hear it. My medical training usually allowed me to keep my heart rate under control even in the middle of a collapsing lung or a ruptured artery, but right now, my pulse was off the charts.
"Is he my daddy?"
The question felt like a physical blow. For five years, I had rehearsed this moment in my head. I had imagined it happening when he was ten, maybe twelve—old enough to understand the complexities of a "monster" who had once called himself a husband. I never expected it to happen at five, in a hotel room in San Francisco, with the scent of the hospital still clinging to my skin.
