The Don Didn't Recognize His Own Son

Everyone was looking at each other. The room was ice.

Nobody could believe it. Two people who'd been that in love, now standing there like enemies.

But people love a winner. And Lorenzo, the Don, was about to be the center of attention no matter what.

After a moment of awkward silence, they all crowded around him, asking about the bride.

Lorenzo smiled and pulled out his phone, showing off wedding photos of him and Sofia.

Somehow, I could feel his gaze drifting towards me out of the corner of his eye.

I was imagining it. How could that be possible?

I shook my head and made myself laugh at it.

I was the last person in the world Lorenzo wanted to see.

I looked at him one last time, and I left.

This time he didn't even notice me leaving.

On the way home, a friend sent me their wedding photo.

In it he had his arm tight around Sofia's waist. He looked happy.

She gave me a call and gossiped.

"Doesn't Sofia look kind of like you? Maybe seventy percent the same."

She lowered her voice like she was sharing state secrets. "I'm telling you. He couldn't get over you. So he went and found a copy."

My heart lurched. Then sank, slowly.

"No way," I said.

"You two were so good together. There's really no chance?"

I stopped walking and looked up at the sky.

It hung dark and gloomy, like it was holding something sad in.

After a long silence, I let out a long breath.

Just like a stuck tape starting to play again, it came out with faint rustling hisses.

"It doesn't matter anymore," I said. "It's done."

Lorenzo had been written out of my life.

He just didn't know that the day they took him, I'd found out I was pregnant.

It was his.

And our son was running out of time.