“I don’t care about the board,” Ethan said.

“I am signing those papers today.”

He walked over to the desk, took a pen from the holder, and waited.

I stood beside him, watching his face as he looked at the blank forms the clerk had just brought out.

Just as Ethan lowered the pen to the paper, his phone in his pocket began to ring.

The screen lit up with a number that made his hand freeze.

It was the private line to his father’s personal attorney.

The phone kept buzzing against the polished wood of the desk.

Ethan looked down at the screen, his thumb hovering over the red icon.

He pressed it, silencing the ringer, and slipped the device back into his pocket.

“Aren’t you going to answer that, Doctor?” the administrator asked, her voice barely a whisper.

“No,” Ethan said.

He pressed the tip of his pen to the first line on the paternity form.

His signature was swift, a sharp set of blue ink lines that bound him to our children forever.

He signed the second form for our daughter, Leo, and then the first for our son, Jack.