Then he changed the subject before I could ask a follow-up.
I told myself he was just a nervous first-time father. New dads get weird. I’d seen it before. I believed my own explanation because it was easier than the alternative, and because my brother had never once given me a real reason not to trust him.
There was one other thing, small enough that I almost didn’t mention it here. About a month before my due date, I asked him offhand whether he and Claire had started looking into daycare yet, and he went quiet for a beat too long before saying they were “still figuring some things out.” At the time I assumed he meant they hadn’t picked a place. I didn’t think to ask what “some things” meant, or why the question seemed to cost him something to answer.
At my final ultrasound, the technician ran the wand slowly down the baby’s spine.
