I learned the rest from Gregory over the following days, pieced together from what Vincent’s own sister eventually admitted in a flurry of furious phone calls. In that bright clinic, the doctor had said the words no one in that room was prepared to hear. The pregnancy was further along than the affair Vincent had so carefully hidden from me. The timeline did not fit. Melina had been seeing someone before Vincent, and the math on the screen made that impossible to smile away.

His mother stopped saying “our grandchild.” His father stared at the floor. The aunt who only showed up for spectacles finally had one. And in the middle of it, Vincent’s phone kept buzzing against his leg, Gregory’s name lighting up the screen again and again, the second catastrophe clawing for his attention while the first was still unfolding in front of eight witnesses. He stepped into the hallway to answer, and that was the moment his morning of easy victories became the worst hour of his life.