He held Leo more steadily this time, and when our son made a soft mewling sound, Ethan instinctively shifted him higher against his chest the exact way I did.
I noticed.
Then his phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and exhaled. “My mother.”
He answered and put it on speaker before I could object.
Carol’s voice came through sharp enough to cut cloth.
“What have you done?”
“I ended it.”
“For her?” she demanded. “For that woman and her baby?”
I stood very still.
Ethan’s hand tightened around the bottle of sanitizer on the table.
“Mom,” he said, each word controlled, “that is my son.”
“If he is your son, then bring him here. He belongs with us.”
“He belongs with his mother.”
I turned and looked at him.
He kept going.
“He’s a newborn. He’s premature. He’s staying where he is.”
Carol made a furious sound. “That woman trapped you and now you’re humiliating this family.”
“No,” he said. “I made choices. Stop blaming Hannah.”
The silence after that was louder than the shouting had been.
Then she said the ugliest word in the English language when applied to a child.
“Am I supposed to let my grandson be known as a bastard?”
I felt my face burn.
Ethan did not raise his voice.
He didn’t need to.