And it had been a lie.

My father had not died.

My father had left.

Chapter 10 — Six Floors Below

I sat with that for a long moment, the enormity of it rolling over me in waves, before I could make myself read on.

Forty-five years.

Forty-five years of believing my father had died in an accident.

Forty-five years of growing up in state care, of foster placements and group homes, of working thirty patient years as an assistant librarian, of living on boiled soup and a tiny pension in a state-funded room, while my father, it turned out, lived six floors above me, wrapped in cashmere and silk.