I printed the document without answering. The signature resembled mine until the last letter, where Dominic had repeated the loop from my pottery invoices. A legal-aid attorney named Ms. Alvarez compared it with the lease and advised me to preserve every message. She said the false signature did not decide parentage, custody, or support, but it mattered because it showed how he handled disagreement. Her calm separated the frightening facts from the stories I was inventing around them.

Dominic admitted creating the document when Ms. Alvarez contacted him. He said it was meant only to reassure the landlord. He had already paid his share through the end of the term, and he offered to continue if I signed a statement saying he had not pressured me. I declined. We agreed to communicate through a co-parenting counselor, even though the baby had not been born. Structure felt strange that early, but private promises had become too easy to revise.

The screening results showed no elevated risk. I cried in the clinic bathroom, not because the result proved my choice correct, but because I had been braced for one more argument with the future. Outside, I found Elaine waiting with two paper cups. She had asked permission through Saira before coming. We drank weak tea on a bench, and she told me she wanted a relationship with the child only if I could set the terms without owing her access.

That afternoon, the arts center offered me the coordinator job with health coverage and predictable hours. I wanted to accept immediately. Then I noticed the start date was two weeks before my estimated delivery month, a detail the interview panel had not known. I disclosed the pregnancy and asked whether the schedule could be adjusted. Saira warned me to prepare for disappointment. The director requested one day to revise the plan. The next morning, instead of a contract, I received an invitation to another appointment.