I looked at it a long time before I understood, and when I did, the last cold piece of my whole life finally slid into place.

“He’s my father,” I said.

“Truett Rennick.

He’s my biological father.” My father — Emmerson, the man in the wheelchair, the man who had spent twenty-six years in the dark — did not flinch.

“Your mother was already involved with him before you were born,” he said gently.

“I knew.