That was the thing Ames Lockridge understood, at the end, that his son never did — that a child’s worth is not a verdict handed down by whether a powerful man chooses to claim them.

My children never needed Rhett’s recognition to be real.

They were always real.

The morning at the graveside did not make them his; it only made him, too late, aware of what had been true all along, standing right in front of him with his own eyes and his own jaw and not one particle of need for his approval.

I gave my children the truth, plainly, without bitterness, because bitterness is just one more thing a liar gets to take from you if you let them, and I was done letting Elke Trask take anything from my family.