Ava felt the room tilt as the words “paternity,” “liability,” and “next of kin” ricocheted off the white walls. Tom’s voice kept rising, as if volume could make up for all the birthdays he’d missed, all the questions he’d never thought to ask. Gary kept his eyes on the ceiling, as though looking at either of them might break what little strength he had left. Between them, Ava tasted the bitter fact that biology had arrived only when mortality did.
Her decision wasn’t cinematic; it was exhausted and raw. She moved her chair closer to Gary’s bed and reached for his hand, her fingers remembering the shape of the man who’d packed lunches and waited in parking lots. Tom flinched, but said nothing. In that silence, Ava understood: DNA could explain her, but it could not claim her. Love, in the end, belonged to the one who had already paid the cost.
