His Brother Said, "The Baby Is Mine"

For three full seconds, nobody breathed.

Trey's mouth opened. Closed. "No. That's... you're thinking of a different day."

"It's Mama's backyard," Damon said. "That's Daddy's tire swing. You were holding a burger in your other hand. They cropped it out. Jasmine had just told everybody she was pregnant, and you said, take one of me and my future niece. And I did. And I put my cup on the fence so I could get the angle right."

He set the photo down on the table. Very carefully.

"So you tell me, Trey. How is a picture I took of my wife and my brother proof of anything?"

Jasmine let out a sob that sounded like it had been trapped in her chest for a year.

Trey's face went from pale to red. He grabbed at the other photos and started spreading them out with shaking hands.

"Okay, fine, that one. One. Look at the rest. Look at the beach. You weren't there for the beach. You were in Phoenix."

Damon looked at the beach picture.

He turned to his wife. "Jas?"

Jasmine wiped her face with both hands. She was trying to get her breath back.

"Galveston," she said. "March. My cousin Keke's bachelorette weekend. Twelve women in a beach house. Trey drove down Saturday because I texted him my car battery died, and he jumped it in the parking lot and stayed for one lunch. Keke took that picture. There were nine other people standing right there."

She pointed. "Look behind us. That's Keke's sash. It says bride."

Damon looked. In the background, half out of focus, a woman in a pink sash was waving a plastic flamingo.

"The restaurant?" he said.

"Your birthday. You were stuck in Denver because of the snowstorm. Your mama, my mama, Trey, and me, we went to Rizzo's anyway because we already had the reservation. We video-called you from the table. You cried because they sang to you over FaceTime."

Damon remembered that. He remembered crying in a Denver hotel room while four people he loved sang off-key to his phone.

He picked up the hotel pool picture.

"And this?"

Jasmine looked at it. Her face changed. Something harder came into it.

"That one he took himself," she said. "That one's the reason he's doing this."

Trey grabbed his jacket off the back of his chair. "I don't have to sit here for this."

"Sit down," Damon said.

Trey froze.

Damon had never once raised his voice at his little brother. Not when Trey crashed his car at seventeen. Not when Trey dropped out of college and moved into his spare room for a year. Not when Trey borrowed four thousand dollars and never paid it back.

He wasn't raising it now either. But Trey sat down.

Damon turned to Jasmine. "Tell me."

She took a deep breath.

"New Year's Eve. Your company party at the Marriott downtown. You were inside giving a speech. I went out by the pool to get some air, because the baby was making me sick. Trey followed me out there."

Trey stared at the table.

"He'd been drinking. He took a selfie of us, and I let him, because he's your brother and I thought he was being silly. And then he tried to kiss me."

Damon's jaw locked.

"I pushed him away. I told him he was drunk. He said he wasn't. He said he'd been in love with me since the day you brought me home. He said you didn't deserve me, because you were never there. He said..." Her voice broke. "He said if I ever told you, he'd make sure you never trusted me again."

Damon turned slowly toward his brother.

"Is that true?"

"She's lying," Trey said. But his voice had no force left in it at all.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Damon asked his wife. "Jas, why didn't you tell me that night?"

"Because you were so happy," she said. "Because you'd just gotten promoted, and we'd just found out about the baby, and he was crying the next morning. He showed up at the door with flowers and begged me not to tell you. He said it was a one-time thing. He said it would kill your mama." She wiped her eyes. "And because he's your baby brother, Damon. You've been taking care of him since your daddy died. I didn't want to be the one to take that away from you."

Damon picked up Trey's phone off the table. Trey grabbed for it. Damon held it out of reach without even looking at him.

"Code."

"D, come on..."

"Code, Trey."

Trey said nothing.

Jasmine said, quietly, "It's your daddy's birthday. Zero four one two."

The phone unlocked.

Damon went to the photos. He didn't have to look long. There was a folder called "J." Hundreds of pictures. Most of them were from family events. Barbecues, birthdays, church. Every single one cropped down to just Trey and Jasmine. Damon's shoulder cut off at the edge of the frame. Damon's hand on her back, edited out. Damon's mother, Damon's cousins, all gone.

Below the folder, there was an app Damon didn't recognize. A photo editor. The recent files were all from the last two weeks.

He scrolled through his brother's texts next. He didn't want to. He couldn't stop.

One thread was with a guy named Rell. Two weeks ago.

Rell: u sure about this bro? that's your brother

Trey: he's had everything handed to him his whole life. the house, the job, the girl. it's my turn

Rell: and if she says the baby is his??

Trey: then I tell him she's lying. she's not gonna be able to prove it till the baby's born. by then he'll be gone. she'll need somebody

Damon read it twice.

Then he set the phone down on top of the photos, face up, so his wife could see it too.

He looked at his brother. The kid he'd taught to ride a bike. The kid he'd picked up from juvie at sixteen. The kid whose rent he'd been quietly paying for eight months without telling anyone.

"Get out of my house," Damon said.

Trey stood up. His eyes were wet now. "D. Please. I'm your brother."

"Not tonight," Damon said. "Tonight you're just a man who tried to steal my family."

Trey walked to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob and turned around one more time.

"You're really gonna believe her over your own blood?"

Damon didn't answer him. Jasmine did.

She stood up from the table, one hand on her belly, and she said something that made both brothers go completely still.

"He doesn't have to believe me, Trey. I already did the test."