Nora asked whether it was a toothbrush.

Maya asked whether it would hurt and then told the technician, at length, about a scab.

And Evelyn stood against the wall of that room with her arms folded and did not say anything for the whole eleven minutes, and in the car afterward she was silent for about half an hour.

I asked her, eventually, what it was.

And she said: “I have known who their father is for six years and I have never once needed to prove it, and I have just proved it, and I will never have to again.

“I thought that would feel like relief.”