“What does that mean?”
“It means the relationship was nearer than half brothers.”
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
Lucas placed another document on my lap.
“We did a private test.”
I didn’t touch it.
“What did it say?”
Lucas looked at Douglas.
Douglas looked at me.
Then Lucas said, “Benjamin isn’t my brother.”
I waited.
“He’s my uncle.”
The words meant nothing for several seconds.
Then everything rearranged itself.
If Benjamin was Lucas’s uncle…
He would have to be Douglas’s brother.
I looked at Douglas.
He was crying.
“I don’t have a brother,” he whispered.
I stared at him.
The photograph.
The baby.
September 1987.
My mother.
My father.
Douglas’s mother.
An old engagement between our parents.
A sealed adoption file.
A child who disappeared.
I stood so quickly the chair scraped across the floor.
“Your mother.”
Douglas nodded slowly.
“She died believing she had one son.”
