I watched the color drain out of my mother’s face.

“Julian Mercer,” she whispered, and there was terror in the whisper.

Julian crossed the room without hurry, and leaned down, and kissed my forehead, and gently brushed one finger across our son’s soft cheek.

And then he straightened, and he turned to face my parents, and he spoke, in a voice that was calm and quiet and carried an edge like a blade.

“You were saying something,” he said, “about my son not having a father?” The silence that followed his question was, I think, the most satisfying sound I have ever heard in my life.