She looked tired and proud and entirely real.

I understood at last why the eyes in the tattoo had seemed so familiar.

It wasn’t a romantic secret etched above Gregory’s heart.

It was the face of a woman whose child had become our child by a winding path nobody planned.

The discovery did not turn Gregory’s deception into an act of love.

It did, however, give the photograph back to the person in it.

I made a copy for Paige and placed the original in an acid-free sleeve beside the old letter.