Page 34 of I Do, You Don't
My heartbeat skips, then pounds erratically. I feel the weight of everything he’s about to say, even before the words leave his mouth. How many times have I tried to prepare for this moment? For the truth, no matter how much it stings? Yet now, standing here in my living room with everyone staring, it feels like I’m being gutted alive. I already know the pieces of the truth are slipping into place, but that doesn’t make them any easier to swallow.
Drew glances at me. My stomach drops. I’d known this was coming—for a year. Yet hearing it aloud feels like watching a wreck I caused but couldn’t stop.
“I’m your brother,” Calvin says simply.
Drew blinks. “I’m sorry, what?”
Calvin looks between us. “Drew. I’m your brother. Half-brother, technically.”
Silence. Not the stunned kind, the what-the-fuck-is-happening kind.
Then Claire lets out a short, clipped laugh. “I think I’d remember giving birth a third time.”
I sigh and rub my temple. I can’t process how fast this is happening. Everything unfolds beyond my control.
Calvin raises a hand, palm out, before anyone can speak again. “I know it sounds insane. Believe me, I thought so too. But I had a DNA test run two months ago to be sure. My grandparents weren’t exactly quiet about how my father is married to another woman, or how my mother despises my existence.
He continues, “I ran a private search to fact-check. Turns out I share paternal DNA with Drew and Lara. I traced it back here. To your father.”
All eyes snap to Dad, who looks like he’s swallowed a box of nails.
“I didn’t come here to rip anyone apart,” Calvin adds. “I came because I wanted to understand. To learn. To observe. Why Delilah, Drew, and Lara got to grow up with parents, and I didn’t.”
Dad’s face crumples. “I, I didn’t know.”
We all watch it happen in real time. Mom’s frown deepens as she pieces the puzzle together, one piece at a time. This is a corner piece, this one has a flat edge, goes on the outside, and then…
She snaps, turning on Dad. “What did you do? Who did you, no. No. We agreed there was never anyone else.”
“There wasn’t!” Dad’s voice cracks. “Not after we got married. But before, Claire, it was before. I didn’t know about him. I swear to you, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know you had a child?”
“I was nineteen!” He throws up his hands. “It was one night. I thought, God, I thought she’d moved on. I didn’t even know she was pregnant.”
“And you didn’t think to tell me about this woman before we had children of our own?”
“I’ve only slept with three women in my entire life,” Dad says. “Veronica, her best friend Sloane, and you.”
(He slept with his old girlfriend’s best friend? Ew.)
Mom stands, trembling, her voice rising with each word. The fabric of her dress shifts as her body tenses. The room feels stifling, air thick with tension, like the walls are closing in. The faint ticking of the clock is the only sound, marking time as everything unravels. The suffocating tension settles like dust, clinging to each of us. Our family teeters on the edge of shattering.
“Enough,” Calvin snaps.
It cuts through everything, the yelling, the questions, the emotional static.
“Enough,” he repeats, voice harder now, edged with something old and bitter. “This isn’t about you two, your marriage, or your secrets. This is about me.”
Amen, brother.
He steps forward, just enough to block the space between my parents and us. The two men behind him shift slightly, not threatening, just a reminder that they’re there.
“You want to talk about pain?” Calvin says, voice low and guttural. “I grew up watching my mother fall apart, wondering why she wasn’t enough for the man who disappeared. Wondering what kind of man leaves before a baby is even born. I was raised by grandparents who didn’t approve of my existence.”
Mom looks like she’s about to speak, but he cuts her off with a sharp look.
“I didn’t come here to make peace. I came to tell the truth. My mother is Veronica Sabilia.”
