I’m not able to have children.

Not “maybe one day.” Not “just keep trying.” Simply… not possible.

After years of infertility, I stopped imagining a nursery. I stopped lingering in the baby section. I stopped using the word “when.”

So when my younger sister got pregnant, I poured my whole heart into it.

I hosted the gender reveal. I bought the crib and stroller. I stood in a store aisle holding tiny duck-print pajamas and crying like a fool.

She hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe.

“You’re going to be the best aunt,” she whispered.

I wanted that more than almost anything.

My sister and I have always had a complicated relationship.

She has a gift for reshaping reality to suit her. Small lies as a kid. Bigger ones as a teenager. By adulthood, it had become part of her identity — fragile, dramatic, always the victim, always in need of attention.

But I thought motherhood would ground her.

Then Mason was born.

And everything changed overnight.

At the hospital, I stood beside her bed with flowers and home-cooked food.

“He’s perfect,” she murmured, staring at him like he was something sacred.

My heart raced. “Can I hold him?”

Her arms tightened instinctively. Her eyes flicked to my hands as if they weren’t clean.

“Not yet,” she said. “It’s RSV season.”

“I washed. I can sanitize again.”

“I know,” she said quickly. “Just… not yet.”

My husband squeezed my shoulder gently. “We can wait.”

So I waited.

Next visit?

“He’s sleeping.”

The one after that?

“He just ate.”

Then?

“Maybe next time.”

I tried to be respectful. I kept space. I wore a mask. I sanitized obsessively. I brought meals, ran errands, dropped off diapers and formula like I was some kind of delivery service.

Three weeks passed.

I hadn’t held my nephew once.

Then I saw a photo online.

Our cousin, sitting on my sister’s couch, smiling, cradling Mason. No mask. No hovering. No talk of RSV.

Just cuddles.

My stomach dropped so hard I had to sit down.

The next day my mom called, cheerful.

“He’s such a snuggler,” she said. “Fell asleep on me instantly.”

I tightened my grip on the phone. “You held him?”

“Of course. Your sister needed a shower.”

I went quiet. “So everyone’s holding him. Except me.”

My mom’s voice turned careful. “Honey, your sister’s just anxious.”

Anxious with me. Not with anyone else.

Even the neighbor posted about dropping off dinner and getting “baby cuddles.”

I texted my sister.

Why am I the only one you won’t let hold him?

She responded hours later.

Don’t start. I’m protecting him.

From me?

You’re around people. It’s different.

I stared at the screen. I work from home. I’m not “around people.” But I didn’t argue. I just felt something heavy and bitter settle in my chest.

I’m coming by tomorrow. I’m holding him.

Don’t threaten me.

It’s not a threat. If you want me in his life, why can’t I hold him?

She left me on read.

Last Thursday, I drove over without texting.

I brought a bag of soft baby caps and a quiet resolve: I wasn’t going to be treated like a biohazard in my own family.

Her car was there.

I knocked. No answer.

I knocked again. Silence.

I tried the handle. It was unlocked.

The house smelled like baby lotion and laundry waiting to be folded.

I heard the shower running upstairs.

And then I heard Mason.

Not a fussy cry. Not a tired cry.

The kind of cry that says, I need someone.

I moved before I thought.

“Mason?” I called, already hurrying.

He was alone in the bassinet, face flushed deep red, fists tight, crying like he’d been left too long.

I scooped him up.

The moment he touched my chest, the screaming softened into shaky hiccups. His tiny fingers clutched my shirt like he was anchoring himself.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I’ve got you.”

My eyes burned.

Then I noticed the Band-Aid.

Small. On his thigh.

Not the kind you see after a doctor’s visit. Not fresh or medical-looking.

More like it was covering something.

One edge had started to peel.

I don’t know why I lifted it. Instinct, maybe. Or maybe I was already tired of feeling like I was the only one being kept in the dark.

I gently pulled the corner back.

And my stomach dropped.

It wasn’t blood. It wasn’t a simple scratch.

It was something that didn’t fit into the picture I’d built in my mind.

My hands began to tremble.

Footsteps thundered down the stairs.

My sister appeared in the doorway, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, eyes wide.

She saw Mason in my arms.

She saw the Band-Aid lifted.

The color drained from her face instantly.

“Oh God,” she whispered.

I couldn’t speak.

She rushed forward, then hesitated as if unsure what I might do.

“Put him down,” she said, her voice breaking. “Please. Just put him down.”

I looked at her. Then at Mason. Then back at her.

“What is this?” I managed.

Her gaze darted everywhere but my face.

“It’s nothing,” she said too quickly.

I let out a harsh little laugh. “It’s not nothing.”

“You weren’t supposed to see it,” she muttered.

“What is it?” I asked again, louder.

Her hands were shaking. “Give me my baby.”

I held Mason a little tighter without meaning to.

“Why did you keep me away?” I demanded. “Why am I the only one who doesn’t get to hold him?”

She flinched.

“It’s germs,” she snapped — but her voice cracked.

“Don’t,” I said quietly. “Don’t insult me.”

Her eyes filled, but she didn’t cry like she usually did. She looked scared. Not caught-in-a-lie scared. Something deeper.

“Give him to me,” she pleaded.

Mason made a small sound, and my chest squeezed painfully. I carefully laid him back into the bassinet, my hands lingering a moment longer than necessary.

He was warm. Real. Innocent.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t his fault.

She quickly pulled the blanket up around him, almost shielding him from me.

I stepped back.

My heart was pounding so loudly it rang in my ears.

I waited for an explanation. A story. A dramatic justification.

Instead, she just stared at me, bracing for my reaction.

I didn’t explode.

I felt… cold.

Like something inside me had shut down just enough to keep me steady.

“I’m leaving,” I said.

“Good,” she exhaled — relieved.

That word hit harder than anything else.

I picked up the bag of baby caps from the counter.

At the door, I turned around.

“If you ever leave him crying alone like that again,” I said quietly, “I’ll call Mom. Or someone else. I don’t care if you’re angry.”

Her eyes flashed. “Don’t tell me how to parent.”

“Then don’t make me,” I replied.

I walked out.

In the car, my hands shook so badly I struggled to start the engine.

I didn’t cry.

I couldn’t.

My mind wouldn’t stop replaying what I’d seen beneath that Band-Aid, trying desperately to force it into some harmless explanation.

Nothing made sense.

When I got home, my husband was in the kitchen, humming like it was any ordinary day.

“Hey,” he said lightly. “How’s the baby?”

There was something about the way he asked—too smooth, too casual—that made my skin crawl.

“Fine,” I answered.

He leaned in to kiss my cheek.

I turned my face so his lips met air.

He paused. “You okay?”

“Just tired,” I said.

He studied me briefly, then shrugged like it wasn’t worth the effort.

“Long day,” he muttered, already stepping away.

I watched him leave the room, and something shifted inside me.

Not clarity. Not yet.

Just a thread pulling tight.

That night, I didn’t confront anyone.

I didn’t text my sister. I didn’t call my mom.

I went quiet.

And I started observing.

I noticed my husband washing his hands longer than usual when he got home.

I noticed he kept his phone face-down.

I noticed how he flinched when it buzzed.

I noticed the sudden return of “quick errands” he hadn’t needed in months.

And I noticed the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn’t paying attention—like he was measuring how much I knew.

I started living in a state of alertness.

Two days later, while he was in the shower, I did something I never imagined I would.

I walked into the bathroom and opened his drawer.

I picked up his hairbrush.

My hands were steady, and that steadiness scared me more than panic would have.

I carefully pulled strands of hair from the bristles and wrapped them in tissue.

Like evidence.

Because that’s what it was.

That night, I ordered a DNA test.

Not because I wanted to destroy my life.

Because I couldn’t survive inside unanswered questions.

The waiting was unbearable.

I performed normalcy every day.

I cooked dinner. I asked about work. I smiled on cue.

Inside, I was counting down.

I even drove past my sister’s house twice, just to see if his car was there.

It wasn’t.

That didn’t reassure me.

It hardened me.

My sister texted once.

Are you mad?

I stared at the message for a long time.

Tell me the truth about what I saw.

She never replied.

Of course she didn’t.

The results came back on a Tuesday.

I opened them in my car in a parking lot. I didn’t want that moment attached to my house.

I read the first line.

Then the next.

Then the percentage that made everything blur.

My chest tightened so fiercely I struggled to breathe.

And suddenly, what I’d seen under that Band-Aid had meaning.

A name.

A reason she’d panicked.

A reason she’d kept me at arm’s length.

That evening, I walked into my house, set down my keys, and faced my husband.

He smiled like nothing had cracked.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s for dinner?”

I held up my phone.

His smile vanished.

“What is that?” he whispered.

My voice was steady.

“I know why she wouldn’t let me hold Mason.”

He swallowed, eyes shifting away.

And finally, the words I hadn’t been able to say in her living room came out.

“I saw the mark under the Band-Aid.”

His face drained of color.

In that moment, I didn’t feel confused or helpless.

I felt clear.

I stepped closer.

“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said. “Right now. Or I will.”

The truth spilled out.

He and my sister had been involved for years. The pregnancy hadn’t been planned.

I made him call her.

“I swear, it wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she cried. “I was going to tell you!”

They tried to soften it. To minimize it. To make it sound complicated instead of cruel.

But nothing erased what I’d felt when I saw that birthmark.

It was identical to my husband’s.

The second I saw it, I’d known.

After that, I cut off contact with my sister.

I filed for divorce.

I would miss Mason more than I could say. But I couldn’t build my life around betrayal.

I thought his birth would bring us closer.

Instead, it revealed everything that had already broken.