“What?” Liv said, not containing the excitement in her voice.

“Danny wasn’t O negative blood type.” He pointed a finger to sample 5094 on the report.

“You know Danny’s blood type?”

“No,” Evan said. “But I know he couldn’t be O negative. Because I’m type AB.”

Liv shook her head. She didn’t understand.

“A parent with Type AB blood can’t give birth to an O negative child.”

“How do you know that? What—”

“Tommy’s appendix,” Evan said. His son’s emergency surgery.

She was staring at him, confused.

“Tommy needed blood.”

“Right, they got it from the blood bank when we were freaking out.”

The terrible memory came back to him, that day in the ER. Evan rushing in late, the doctor explaining that Tommy’s blood type was rare—type O negative—and he’d ordered some blood, but it would be faster if Evan could be the donor. Liv couldn’t because she was type A positive.

“They asked me to give my blood,” Evan said. “Tommy is O negative.” He pointed at Danny’s blood sample, which had the same blood type as Tommy.

Liv turned white.

“The doctor pulled me aside, said he didn’t know how to tell me this, but I couldn’t be a donor. A type AB cannot give blood or even be the parent of a type O negative.”

Liv’s eyes were wet. “You knew? All this time, and you knew?”

He nodded.

“But why?”

“Because he’s still my son,” Evan said. He’d long considered telling her that he knew Tommy wasn’t his biological son, but he could never bring himself to do so.

Tears spilled from her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so—”

Evan put his hand on her shoulder, made a quiet shh sound, looking toward Maggie’s room.

Liv didn’t look well. She took a gulp of water. “I don’t know what to—”

“Do you love me?” Evan said.

She looked at him.

“Olivia Pine, do you love me?”

“Yes.” She searched his face, her own set in despair and confusion.

“Then there’s nothing you need to say.”

They sat in silence, Liv quietly trying to catch her breath, her hands shaking, her body quivering as if she were cold.

“I want us back,” Evan whispered, not wanting Maggie to hear. “Like we were. I want our family back.”

Liv sobbed, “That’s all I ever wanted.” She wiped her face with her hand.

They heard a noise from Maggie’s room. Liv wiped her face and Evan focused again on the computer, trying to act naturally.

Then Liv said it, the thing that caused the world to tilt: “If it wasn’t Danny’s blood—if he’s not blood type O negative—then whose is it?”

Evan looked at her for what seemed like a really long time until her face drained of color again.

“Noah?” she said.