"There must be a mistake." Mouse felt dizzy. "A mistake," she repeated stupidly. "They have to run the tests again, Henry." She looked at the photographs hung on the walls of Henry's cozy den. There were no windows in this room, as it had no exterior walls; it was literally a den, a retreat, in every sense of the word. Its walls were decorated with pictures Henry had taken, of Leo, of New York, and lately, of Mouse with Leo.

Leo looked back at her, blue eyes bright. Henry's eyes, Henry's smile. Even the line of his little jaw, all Henry's, or so she'd believed. She swiveled her eyes back to her husband, who knelt before her as she sat in the chair, his face tortured.

"They did, honey," Henry said, his voice soft. "That's why they took two swabs. One's a back up, in case--in case there's some confusion, which there can be, with kids sometimes." He grasped Mouse's hand. "The results were the same. No shared genetic material." He searched her eyes.

"Dr. Bernstein said they could do another full work up if we wanted to take Leo directly to the lab in New Jersey to get some blood drawn, but she didn't see the point, these tests are very accurate," he concluded.

He rose, pulling Mouse with him, and led her to the chair behind his desk. He sat and patted his lap, inviting her to sit, and she did, so they could both look at his computer, which was open to the genetic testing site. 

He'd opened all three of their profiles so they were side by side. Hers, on the left, which read "Cameron, Martha Louise," showed what she expected. She was a mixture of Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe, with a bit of Native American thrown in.

"Gardener, Leo Henry," and "Gardener, Henry Robert," showed similar circles, with mixtures of Europe and Great Britain, but Henry's showed a circle for "European Jewish" that didn't show up in Leo's at all. 

"This isn't the important one," Henry said. "This just shows ethnicity, you know? I mean, you and I have overlap in our ethnicity." He clicked on another window, which showed lab reports, with lines going up a vertical chart, like on crime shows. "This is me," he gestured to a group of lines. "And this is Leo." He gestured to another chart. "See the comparison?"

And even to Mouse's untrained eye, it was obvious that there was no overlap at all. The charts simply didn't match. She saw the bottom of the report, right above the signature of the lab tech.

Probability of paternal match: 0%

"Oh, Jesus," she said despairingly. She put her hands to her face, and felt tears coming. She tried to stave them off, for Henry's sake. He didn't need a stupid, useless, pregnant crying wife right now, he needed someone strong, rational, and calm. 

"Henry, I'm so sorry," she said. She didn't know what else to say.

"I've been looking at this stuff for the past few hours," he said, his voice gravelly with fatigue. "Trying to make sense of it, trying to make something rational out of it, you know? Just trying to figure out what the fuck happened, for one thing." His voice became soft with disbelief.

"I mean, did she cheat on me? And if she did, was it a one time thing? Or an ongoing affair? Does this man know about Leo? Was she attacked by someone? I know it sounds insane, but this whole situation is insane, you know?" He ran his hand through his hair. "Or was there a mix-up at the hospital? And maybe Josie never knew, either?" He turned to Mouse, who could only look back helplessly. "You hear about stuff like that, you know? They make movies about it.

"And should I try to find out? I mean, should I investigate?" By now Mouse could tell Henry was talking more to himself, just needing to get the words out. No response was required of her but to be there and listen. "Do I need to find out who Leo's real father is?

"And does anyone else know?" He ran his hand through his hair again. "I mean, what if that kooky Stacy knows? She's off the rails, but she and Josie talked quite a bit..." He trailed off, looking almost hypnotized in the reflected light from the computer screen.

"Leo's real father--does he deserve to know?" Henry asked. "And what about the other boy? My real son? He's out there, somewhere, right?" He looked at Mouse, agonized. "What if his life is miserable? What if he's suffering? My real child--"

"Henry, stop saying that," Mouse said. "Leo is your real child, he's your son!" She tried not to sound stern.

Henry looked at her in surprise. "He's not, though," he replied, and Mouse was shaken at the calm certainty she saw in his eyes and heard in his voice. "Leo's not my child, Mouse, not in any way."

"You can't mean that!" Mouse was shocked. She sat up in his lap. "You've raised him since the day he was born, and for most of his life you've done it completely alone! You were not only his primary caregiver, you were his only caregiver, Henry!" She gave her husband a little shake. "You're not saying you feel differently about him, are you?" At his silence, she stared.

"Henry? Are you?"

"Mouse, come on," Henry said, and her heart broke a little at the apology she heard in his voice. "You come from a large family yourself, don't tell me you don't think biology matters."

Mouse swallowed and rose slowly from his lap.

"Henry, you know my brother Lawrence? Who owns the diner? Married to Hope? Yeah, well, he and my sister Katherine, the marine biologist, the one you met at my wedding? Well, they're biological brother and sister to each other, but they were adopted into my family twenty years ago when my father was sent to Russia on a business trip." She gave him a steady look. "We never talk about it, because it just doesn't matter to us, you know?" She sucked her lips together for a moment, then stroked her stomach, a move which wasn't lost on her distraught husband. "Yeah," she continued, nodding. "I was a baby, pretty much, but I remember when dad came home with them. It was crazy. I mean, he must have talked to my mother about it, but he was over there for six months or something, and he met them, and their lives were just awful, and the man who owned the company or whatever was able to grease the wheels, and dad just brought them home."

Henry stared at her. "And you guys just folded them into your family? Just like that?" His voice held disbelief.

Mouse nodded, looking Henry in the eye. "Yes, Henry, just like that," she responded. "Family isn't about blood, or DNA or whatever," she continued, gesturing toward the computer. "It's about living together, and fighting over the bathroom and the hair dryer and the last piece of cake. It's about making cookies and bathing the dog and walking to school and getting hair cuts and you should know all this, Henry!" Her voice rose in spite of everything she was trying to do to control it.

Henry just sat and thought. Lawrence was a big man who resembled Mike Cameron, Mouse's father, physically. Katherine was petite, more like Mouse than Mary Lizard, who was her actual biological sister, apparently.

Adopted? From Russia?

But Leo. 

His son, Leo.

"Oh, Henry," Mouse said, reaching out to stroke his face. 

"I can remember when they handed him to me at the hospital, Mouse," Henry said, his voice breaking. "He was so small, and he was all red from crying, and covered with this--stuff," Henry laughed. "That goopy crap, you know?"

Mouse nodded, laughing along with him. 

"But when I held him, he stopped crying for a sec, and we had this moment, just the two of us," Henry went on. "Josie wasn't even paying attention, because they were doing something to her. And I looked at him, and he looked back at me, and I said, 'Hello there. You're my son. You're my little guy.'" He looked at Mouse, his eyes swimming with fresh tears. "And now, to find out it's all been a mistake, a huge lie--"

Henry broke down.

He put his face in his palms and wept, so Mouse put her feelings aside so she could comfort him. But even as she held him, and tried to help him ride his grief, she kept hearing those words in her head. 

'Mistake. Huge lie.'

Leo was still Leo, wasn't he? He was the same child, with the same sense of humor, the same wonderful way of seeing the world. He was the same boy who would give his crackers to a hungry person, who would name his pet after the best emotion in the world, who would call his new sibling after a legume?

What could Henry be thinking?

Mouse tried not to be disappointed in her husband. He needed her. She stroked his hair, and kissed the top of his head, and soothed him as best she could.

And they were so wrapped up in each other and their feelings that neither one of them noticed that the door to the den wasn't all the way closed. Neither one of them saw the little blue eye in the gap between the door and the wall, and neither one of them heard the small feet go padding back to his bed, under the ceiling with all the stars and planets of the cosmos painted on them. They didn't know about the lost young soul who cried himself to sleep that night, with only his dog for company.