My stepdad raised me after I lost my mother — just hours before he d*ed, he gripped my hand and whispered, “There’s something I’ve hidden from you your entire life.”

“Did you know her well?”

“Briefly.

This was a long time ago, Claire.”

“The birth certificate had my name on it.” I said it quietly, the way Frank would have said something important.

“Catherine was my biological mother.”

Gerald’s expression moved through something complicated and landed on sympathy.

“Oh, sweetheart.

That must have been a shock.

Frank should have told you years ago — I always thought so.

But he was protecting you.

That was Frank.”

“From what, though?” I asked.

“What was he protecting me from?”

“From grief, I suppose.

From questions that didn’t have good answers.”

“I found a letter too,” I said.

“Frank wrote it recently.

While he was ill.”

Gerald picked up his mug again.

A small recalibration of his hands.

“He wrote about Catherine’s death,” I said.

“He had questions about it.

He’d been looking into it for a long time.”

“Frank had a lot of time to think in that hospital.” Gerald’s voice was gentle, careful.