Lucas went pale.
“We ruled that out.”
“How?”
“My mother’s parents had no other children.”
“That they knew of.”
He stared at me.
The room was suddenly filled with another possibility.
Another door.
Douglas whispered, “Margaret never knew her biological father.”
Lucas turned.
“What?”
I looked at Douglas.
“You never told him?”
“Margaret asked me not to.”
Lucas stepped closer to the bed.
“Mom told me Grandpa Ellis was her father.”
“He raised her. He was her father in every way that mattered.”
“But biologically?”
Douglas shook his head.
“No.”
Lucas stared at him.
“Who was?”
“She never knew.”
I looked at the blue suitcase.
At my letters.
At the ring.
At the photograph.
Then at the ledger entry bearing my father’s name.
What had seemed like one secret was becoming something else.
A web connecting our families long before Douglas and I had ever met.
My phone rang.
