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out the results yet?”
    â€œAlready done. You made the A team.”
    Ryan didn’t outwardly celebrate. That wasn’t his way. He nodded and tried to hold back his smile. “Can I go to Max’s after school?”
    â€œWhat are you guys going to do on such a beautiful day?”
    â€œSit in the dark and play video games,” Ryan said.
    Adam frowned, but he knew that Ryan was pulling his leg.
    â€œJack and Colin are coming over too. We’re going to play lacrosse.”
    â€œSure.” Adam swung his legs out of the bed. “Did you eat breakfast?”
    â€œNot yet.”
    â€œYou want me to make you Daddy eggs?”
    â€œOnly if you promise not to call them Daddy eggs.”
    Adam smiled. “Deal.”
    For a moment, Adam forgot about the night before and the stranger and Novelty Funsy and Fake-A-Pregnancy.com. It had, as such things do, taken on a dreamlike quality, where you nearly question whether you had imagined the whole thing. He knew better, of course. He was blocking. He had, in fact, managed to sleep pretty well last night. If there had been dreams, Adam didn’t remember them now. Adam slept well most nights. Corinne was the one who stayed up and worried. Somewhere along the way, Adam had learned to not worry about what he couldn’t control, to let go. This had been a healthy thing, this ability to compartmentalize. Now he wondered whether it was an ability to let go or simply to block.
    He headed downstairs and made breakfast. “Daddy eggs” were scrambled up with milk, mustard, and Parmesan cheese. When Ryan was six, he loved Daddy eggs, but like most things with little kids, he outgrew them, labeling them “lame” one day and vowing never to touch them again. Recently, his new coach had told Ryan that he should always start the day with a high-protein breakfast, and so Daddy eggs had been revived like a nostalgic musical.
    As Adam watched his son attack the plate as though it had offended him, he again tried to picture the six-year-old Ryan eating this same dish in this same room. The image wouldn’t come to him.
    Thomas had a ride, so Ryan and Adam drove to school incomfortable silence, father and son. They passed a Baby Gap and a Tiger Schulmann’s karate school. A Subway had opened up in that “dead” spot on the corner, that one storefront in every town where nothing seems to work. It’d already housed a bagel shop, a jewelry store, an upscale mattress chain, and a Blimpie, which Adam had always thought was the same thing as Subway anyway.
    â€œâ€™Bye, Dad. Thanks.”
    Ryan hopped out of the car without a cheek kiss. When did Ryan stop kissing him? He couldn’t remember.
    He circled across Oak Street, headed past the 7-Eleven, and saw the Walgreens. He sighed. He parked in the lot and sat in the car for several minutes. An old man hobbled by, his prescription bag death-gripped between his gnarly hand and the top of his walker. He glared at Adam, or maybe that was just the way he looked at the world now.
    Adam headed inside. He grabbed a small shopping basket. They needed toothpaste and antibacterial soap, but that was all for show. He flashed back to his youth when he’d throw a bunch of toiletries into a similar container so it wouldn’t look as though he was just buying condoms, which would remain unused in his wallet until they started cracking from age.
    The DNA tests were located near the pharmacist. Adam walked over, doing his best to look casual. He looked left. He looked right. He picked up the box and read the back:
    THIRT Y PERCENT OF “FATHERS” WHO TAKE THIS TEST W ILL DISCOVER THAT TH E CHILD THEY ARE RAIS ING IS NOT THEIRS.
    He dropped the box onto the shelf. He hurried away as though the box might beckon him back. No. He would not go there. Not today, anyway.
    He brought the other toiletries up to the counter, grabbed a pack of gum, and paid. He hit Route 17, passed a few more