Part One

Four small boys walked into a restaurant washroom three hours before I was supposed to propose.

Five minutes later I was looking at four faces that were unmistakably mine, and understanding that somebody had kept a secret long enough to reshape my entire life.

Everything about that afternoon had been arranged weeks in advance.

The suit was tailored.

My grandfather’s cufflinks sat under the cuffs, catching the low light of the private room.

In my coat pocket was a ring that had been approved by my mother, by two attorneys, and by nearly everyone except me.

At seven that evening I was expected to ask Genevieve Ashford to marry me, in front of two hundred guests, at my family’s estate on the Connecticut shore.

Nobody involved pretended it was love.

It was a merger with a diamond attached, timed to close before the end of the fiscal quarter.

Then I stepped into the men’s room to straighten my tie.

Four boys in matching navy school uniforms stood at the long row of marble sinks.

They looked no older than six.

I barely registered them at first.

I reached for a towel.

Then one of them pushed his wet hair back — a quick, restless motion.

The other three did it at exactly the same moment.

I stopped moving.