I couldn’t breathe. A child.

“Are you sure?” I whispered.

“I’m looking at the birth date right now,” he said. “The last name is yours.”

I hung up the phone. I didn’t say goodbye. I didn’t even remember to thank him.

I just sat there, and for the first time in thirty years, the house didn’t feel like a home. It felt like a trap I had been walking around in for years without knowing it.

I walked into the kitchen. Warren was there, putting on his boots to go out to the barn. He looked so familiar. He looked exactly like the man I married, right down to the way he hummed a little tune while he tied his laces.

“Warren,” I said. My voice sounded like it belonged to someone else.

He didn’t look up. “Yeah, hon? Something wrong with the stove again?”

I held up the papers. I didn’t say a word. I just stood there, and I guess the look on my face must have been something, because he finally stopped moving. He looked at my hands. Then he looked at the envelopes.

“Where did you get those?” he asked. His voice wasn’t warm anymore. It was cold. It was the voice of a stranger.

“Tampa,” I said. “Why is there a child in Tampa, Warren?”

He stood up slowly. He didn’t come toward me. He backed toward the door.

“You shouldn’t have been looking in that drawer,” he said.

“I wasn’t looking for secrets. I was looking for paper.”

He started to laugh then. It wasn’t a nice laugh. It was the sound of a man who knew the game was up and didn’t care who got hurt.

“You never understood the business,” he said, turning his back on me. “You always wanted to play house.”

“Is she mine?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked. I think I already knew the answer.

He didn’t even turn around. “She’s not yours, Loretta. She’s mine.”

I felt something break inside me. It wasn’t my heart. It was my patience. I realized then that I had been protecting a man who had been erasing me from his life for years. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. I just felt cold, a deep, bone-chilling cold that the Iowa summer couldn’t touch.

“I’m calling the police,” I said.

He turned then, his face twisted in a way I’d never seen. “You do that, and you lose the farm. You’re on the title for that LLC, too. You’re just as guilty as I am in their eyes.”

He thought he had me cornered. He thought I was still that girl who did whatever he said to keep the peace. But he forgot one thing. I spent thirty years keeping the books for this farm. I knew exactly where every cent was hidden.

“I’m not keeping your secrets anymore, Warren,” I said.