There is a particular cruelty in watching someone lose a mother in real time while she is still alive, and I found, to my own surprise, that I wanted to spare him the next part and could not.

Then Fergus saw the third folder, and went rigid, because it was labeled, in my father’s careful hand, with a single word.

FERGUS.

Chapter 12 — The File With His Name

“Why is there a file with my name on it?” he asked.

Nobody answered.

Bettina opened it.

Inside were old medical records, some personal letters, an original birth certificate with its seal — and, tucked behind them, a certified paternity report dated fifteen years earlier.