“I was,” Chrissie insists, sheltering herself with an arm over her head. “You have no idea. But I didn’t say anything that day—I don’t know why—and time went on, and I loved that you were my New York friend, and we grew closer, and you held my hand through my struggle to conceive and then my nightmare pregnancy, and Kian was born, and I fell in love with Joy, and the time was never right, because saying something after years of silence was impossible.”

I could almost understand that. Marginally calmer, I ask, “But why now? Why risk coming back here and being recognized?”

“Your Dad died.”

“And that made it worth the risk?” I ask, skeptical. She and I are on the same wavelength so often it’s scary, but I’m not there with her now.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Your dad died,” she repeats, suddenly disciplined, suddenly the woman who coaches lost souls, the woman who understands love and grief and regret. “Whether or not he’s your biological, he was your dad. I knew you’d be feeling lost, and conflicted, maybe even guilty that you haven’t seen him more. I knew this whole—” she gestures widely back at the cemetery, “business was going to be difficult for you, and I knew your sisters would be here. I wanted to be here for you, too.”

It’s the proper response, but I know Chrissie too well. There’s more. Her look right now is … frightened, pleading, pregnant.

Facing the sea, for all the good it’s doing, I brace my hands on the top of the bench. Its roughness gives me traction as I consider how to proceed. But bluntness is the only way. Diplomacy is beyond me. “What aren’t you saying?”

She doesn’t answer.

My eyes fly to hers then, because suddenly, I see. She’s from Bay Bluff. She’s Roberto Aiello’s daughter. She’s heard the rumors. “You think we’re sisters!”

She hesitates for several seconds more. Maybe she’s waiting for me to elaborate. Maybe she’s hoping I’ll deny it and offer evidence to the contrary. Maybe she’s praying I’ll confirm it, saying I suspected it all along. But how could I have ever suspected it, when she’s kept me in the dark all this time?