I pounded on Brianna’s door, the note shaking in my fist. She opened it slowly, and her eyes were red. “You read it,” she whispered. I held up the page, where five shaky words were written: I am your husband’s daughter. My knees went weak. Nathan reached the porch behind me, breathless, and he did not deny it.

“Rachel, I swear I only found out last month,” he said. Brianna stepped aside, and in the hallway I saw a framed photograph of a young woman holding a baby, with Nathan’s grandmother’s crooked smile. “My mother raised me alone,” Brianna said. “She never told him. She died in spring, and her letters led me here.” Then she lifted a sealed envelope from the table, and her hand trembled. “This is what she left for both of you.”