But even without knowing the blood, we found each other, two lonely old people under an oak tree, and that finding was true, and it remains, of all the strange truths in this story, the one I hold most tenderly: that before I knew he was my father, I had already chosen him as my friend, and he had already, across a chessboard, come home to me.

Chapter 3 — Marry Me

Then Harrison’s health began to decline, and the moment it did, his children abruptly appeared.

For all the months I had known him, I had never once seen them visit.

But the instant his body began to fail, they materialized, and they did not come with love.

They came with lawyers.

They came to seize his medical power of attorney, to take legal control of his care, and, Harrison became convinced, to use that control to quietly hasten his end, to speed him toward the death they had been waiting for, so that the probate they were so hungry for could begin.

He was terrified.