“She didn’t know you existed until tonight,” I said.

“How could she not know?” Henry asked.

“We look just like the pictures in the hallway.”

“Because your father chose to tell them a story that was easier for him to live with,” I said.

“Is he going to come back and talk to us?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

Margaret came into the library forty minutes later while I was packing Henry’s drawing pads into my briefcase near the long mahogany table.

She had a slim leather checkbook in her right hand.