“We’re going to make it,” I say. She stiffens in my arms, and I instinctively hold her tighter. “I know you’re scared. I know you don’t trust this to work, but . . .” I force myself to relax my hold. “I’m struggling to not be selfish. I want you in my arms all the time, but I know you have other things to do this week.”

“You’re the least selfish person I know,” she says softly.

“Maybe I just hide it well.” I mean it as a joke, but it doesn’t sound like that. “I’ve been pretty selfish with you.”

“Not with Abi. Not with Scarlett.”

I shrug. I don’t particularly want to talk about my ex-wife while Shay is in my arms, but there’s still so much of our pasts we haven’t hashed out. If she wants to talk about this now, we will. “I’ve had my moments, but don’t paint me as a martyr just because our situation is unconventional.”

Turning in my arms, she presses her palm to my chest, as if trying to measure the beats of my heart. “When did you find out Abi wasn’t yours?”

“When Abi was sick, I wanted to see if I was a match to donate bone marrow. Most of the time, parents aren’t a match, but I wanted to try anyway. Scarlett panicked that it was like a DNA test or something and they’d tell me I wasn’t Abi’s father.” I close my eyes as I remember her stopping me on my way out the door. Her panic. Her tearful confession. The way she begged me not to leave her. “She told me she’d lied because she’d wanted to give her child the best, and she believed I was meant to be Abi’s father.”

“What did you do?”

“I grieved a little, I guess. Now it truly doesn’t matter to me. She’s my daughter, but when I first discovered she wasn’t biologically mine, I had to rearrange my perception of everything. Including my marriage and how hard I was willing to bend to make it work and how long I was willing to continue what felt like a ruse at that point. Scarlett and I were married in name only. When she moved back in after Abi’s diagnosis, I insisted she sleep in a different room until we figured out what we really wanted. The day of her confession, I went from wanting to stay married for my three-year-old daughter’s sake to wanting to stay married because I was afraid she’d take Abi away from me if we divorced. What claim did I have if she wasn’t even my blood?”

“That’s awful.”