“How long?”
He looked at the photograph one last time.
“Before you were born.”
Then he told me something that shattered everything I thought I knew.
“My mother didn’t choose you because she needed someone to keep me company in prison.”
He took my hands.
“She chose you because she believed you were the only person who could lead us to the truth about my father’s death.”
I stared at him, tears running down my face.
“And what happens when we find it?”
Jonah’s expression darkened.
“Then we discover which
one of our families has been lying to us for our entire lives.”
Outside, sirens began to approach.
But I barely heard them.
Because tucked inside the envelope was one more piece of paper.
A birth certificate.
My mother’s name was listed at the top.
And beside the word FATHER was a name I had spent three years learning to love.
JONAH’S FATHER.
I looked at my husband.
And for the first time, I wondered whether our marriage had brought two strangers together…
Or whether someone had spent our entire
