“What about Sean Riley?”

“Wendy refused to tell us who the father was. We really had no idea until you began to grow into that young man’s spitting image.”

“So you moved across town and sent me to Catholic school so nobody else would see the resemblance?”

“That was part of it, yes. But not all. I wanted you in a school that was safer than Seabank High, somewhere values would be an everyday part of your education, the way they hadn’t been for your sister.”

“It’s a joke to think that sitting through Mass every morning does much to tamp down hormones. Girls at our school got pregnant, too.”

“I was willing to try.”

I couldn’t throw that back at her. I’d loved my school. The faculty, nuns and laypeople alike, had challenged me on every level. They’d helped me see I could be anybody I wanted. They’d helped me emerge from Wendy’s shadow because they hadn’t known her.

I changed the subject. “Sean Riley is dead. Did you know that?”

Mom cleared her throat. I glanced at her, and she looked away. “The Gulf War. So few casualties, really, but yes, Sean was one of them.”

I’d learned the news last night on Google. How could I mourn a young man I’d never met? He’d been a sperm to Wendy’s egg, nothing more. But still, I had cried more than a few tears. The opportunity to meet my biological father had exploded right along with the land mine that had killed him.

“His family is large, and they aren’t wealthy,” she went on. “He was a smart boy, handsome as all get out, and he could sing like a Broadway star. I heard he won scholarships, but the money didn’t stretch far enough. So he enlisted. He was counting on the GI Bill when he got out.”

“He gambled and lost.”

“After he died I had no proof he was your father, but I was beginning to suspect. You weren’t even in preschool, and even then, you looked like him.”

“Do his parents know about me?”

“They still live in Seabank, but I could never find the right way to tell them.”

“That’s sounding familiar.”

“What if I was wrong? What if Sean wasn’t your father? Wendy still refuses to talk about it. What if I got the Rileys’ hopes up or worse, what if my revelation ruined the way they saw their son? In their eyes he’s probably a hero. And then there was you, and yes, Wendy. The truth would have gotten out, and both of you would have been forced to live with the result.”

I was in no mood to agree with her. “Why don’t you start back at the beginning?”

She took a deep breath. “By the time she was a senior, your sister was hard to control. She was sure she knew exactly what she should do and with whom. The fights were wearing. And when we didn’t agree with her, she found other ways to get whatever she wanted. Of course, other parents were having the same problems. Our situation wasn’t unique.”