Part 2 of 3

“Then tell me what’s inside.”

“We should go home.”

“Tell me.”

He couldn’t.

Emily slid one finger under the flap and tore it open.

Inside was a photograph and a folded handwritten letter.

She looked at the photograph first.

Her hand began shaking.

I moved beside her.

In the picture, Ryan was standing next to Vanessa.

Between them was a little girl who looked about three years old.

Dark hair.

Brown eyes.

Ryan’s eyebrows.

Ryan’s smile.

Emily gripped the edge of the table.

“Who is she?”

Ryan’s face crumpled.

“Emily…”

My daughter looked at him.

“Who is that little girl?”

He didn’t answer.

Emily held up the photograph.

“Is she yours?”

Ryan covered his mouth.

That was answer enough.

But Emily asked again.

“Is she your daughter?”

Finally, he nodded.

“Yes.”

The backyard went silent.

Emily looked down at the photograph again.

“How old?”

Ryan swallowed.

“Three and a half.”

My daughter had spent four years trying to build a family with him.

Four years of appointments.

Four years of disappointments.

Four years of Ryan sitting beside her and telling her they would keep trying.

And somewhere inside those same four years, another little girl had been growing up with his eyes.

Emily’s voice dropped.

“You were with Vanessa?”

“Once.”

Emily gave a short, disbelieving laugh.

“Of course it was once.”

“It was after we lost the second pregnancy. We were fighting constantly, and I had too much to drink. I hated myself afterward.”

Emily stared at him.

“I lost that baby too, Ryan.”

He lowered his eyes.

“While I was grieving our baby, you went to someone else?”

“I made a terrible mistake.”

“And then?”

He looked confused.

“What?”

Emily unfolded the letter.

She read the first few lines, stopped, then started again.

When she looked up, her face had gone pale.

“This says you’ve known Emma was yours for three and a half years.”

Ryan didn’t deny it.

“You knew from the beginning?”

“Almost.”

“And you never told me?”

“I wanted to.”

“When?”

He rubbed his hands together.

“After our baby was born.”

Emily stared at him as though he had suddenly become someone she didn’t recognize.

I pointed toward the pink cake.

There was still one question nobody had answered.

“Why did you change the gender result?”

Ryan looked at Emily.

Then at Nora.

Finally, he sat down.

“The real result wasn’t pink.”

Emily frowned.

“What?”

Nora spoke quietly.

“The original envelope said male.”

My daughter looked at the cake.

Then at her husband.

“We’re having a boy?”

Ryan nodded.

“Yes.”

Emily’s hand moved protectively over her stomach.

“Then why did you make everyone believe we were having a girl?”

Ryan glanced toward the photograph.

“Because Vanessa found out.”

“Found out what?”

“That we were having a son.”

Emily waited.

Ryan’s voice became quieter.

“She thought that once I had a son with you, I would disappear from Emma’s life completely.”

“So your solution was to fake our baby’s gender?”

“Vanessa threatened to come here and tell you everything. I thought if she believed we were having another girl, she’d calm down long enough for me to figure out what to do.”

Nora folded her arms.

“Except she discovered you lied to her too.”

Ryan looked down.

Now I understood why Vanessa had returned to the bakery alone.

She had hidden beneath that pink cake the one thing Ryan had spent three and a half years keeping out of my daughter’s hands.

The truth.

Emily stared at the photograph.

Then she looked at the pink filling spilling from the half-cut cake.

Ryan moved closer.

“When you started crying after you cut it, I thought you were happy.”

Emily slowly lifted her head.

“I wasn’t crying because I thought we were having a girl.”

Ryan frowned.

“Then why were you crying?”

She rested one hand over her stomach.

“Because I already knew something was wrong.”

Ryan went pale.

And when my daughter told us what she had seen on his phone the night before, I understood that the secret underneath the cake wasn’t the first crack in their marriage.

It was only the first one Ryan could no longer hide.

PART 2 — THE MESSAGE

Emily looked at Ryan across the cake table.

“Vanessa texted you last night.”

Ryan’s shoulders stiffened.

“You went through my phone?”

My daughter almost smiled.

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

He looked away.

Emily explained that Ryan’s phone had lit up on the nightstand while he was brushing his teeth. She hadn’t picked it up or opened anything. The preview had simply appeared across the screen.

She remembered every word.

“You can’t keep hiding her forever.”

Ryan had come out of the bathroom moments later, seen the notification, and turned his phone facedown.

Emily had spent the night telling herself there had to be another explanation.

Then she cut into a cake that was supposed to surprise both of them.

The filling was pink.

Everyone else screamed.

Ryan didn’t even blink.

“That’s why I cried,” she said. “I thought Vanessa was your girlfriend. Then I saw your face when the cake was pink, and I knew you already knew something I didn’t.”

She looked at the photograph again.

“I just never imagined this.”

Ryan moved toward her.

“Emily, please let me explain everything.”

She took one step backward.

“You’ve had three and a half years to explain.”

He stopped.

Emily looked down at her wedding ring.

She twisted it once, the way I had seen her do whenever she was anxious during doctor appointments. Then she slowly pulled it from her finger.

Ryan stared.

“Don’t do this today.”

Emily placed the ring on the table beside the slice of pink cake.