It would have been easier if my mother were simply mistaken — tired, medicated, confused by grief into seeing a resemblance that was not there.

Easier because then nothing would have to change.

Easier because then the quiet young woman by the window could go back to being a housekeeper, and my father could remain the man I had spent six years mourning rather than the man who had hidden a daughter, and I could remain exactly who I was.

The cold instinct for an exit is strong in me.

It is one of the things that kept me alive.