He stared at Lucas.
“Ruth.”
The word landed strangely.
I almost laughed.
“My middle name?”
Douglas shook his head.
“No.”
His expression had become one of pure disbelief.
“Ruth Bennett.”
I stopped breathing.
“That’s impossible.”
Lucas looked between us.
“Why?”
Because Bennett was my mother’s married name.
And Ruth—
Ruth was the name of the sister my mother had told me died when she was a baby.
The aunt I had never met.
The aunt I had been named after.
I stared at the photograph again.
At the young woman standing between Douglas and me in the summer of 1984.
Alive.
Smiling.
My mother’s supposedly dead sister.
Lucas’s face reflected in hers.
With trembling fingers, I unfolded the paper that had been hidden beside the photograph.
It wasn’t a letter.
It was a birth certificate.
Old.
Folded twice.
At the top was a date.
September 17, 1987.
Lucas’s birthday.
