“I didn’t know that.” Why didn’t she? Why did she have to discover all these things when it was too late? There was no opportunity to discuss them now. No chance to ask her mother the questions that were crowding inside her. No chance to ask Cliff—her father—why he hadn’t thought about what she might need. “I can imagine she would say a thing like that. She was proud. She always taught me the importance of self-reliance. Being able to support myself.” And yet in that conversation Ashley had overheard, her mother had been yelling and desperate. “You found out for sure about the affair, and about me, at the same time?”

“Yes. He told me your mother had called him about eleven weeks after their affair. I’d just had a miscarriage.” Joanna sat back down again. “It was the worst possible time to confess that he’d fathered a child with another woman.”

“She raised me alone. And then she met my dad. At least, I always thought of him as my dad.” Her view of everything had changed in the last few months. And her childhood had been happy. She hadn’t had a clue about any of this in her mother’s background. But her mother had known. She’d carried the truth with her for her whole life, and only revealed it at the end. And only because she sensed she wasn’t going to recover. “I don’t know if even my dad knew Cliff was my real father.”

“I’m sure Cliff thought the whole thing was behind him. And he would have been relieved, because Cliff doesn’t—didn’t—like anything tarnishing his carefully constructed life. And then he took that phone call. Your mother was sick, and worried about how you’d manage when she was gone. That was why she reached out. She wanted him to agree to support you financially so that you could afford to go to college, but she also wanted him to take an active part in your life if something happened to her.”

Ashley was shaking. “Why would she want that for me? This was a guy who pretended I didn’t exist. He knew nothing about loyalty or responsibility. What was he ever going to bring to a relationship?”

“I’m guessing your mother was desperately worried about you. You have no other family?”

“No. My grandparents died when I was little and my mother was an only child.”

“She was trying to look out for you. Doing what she thought was best. That was the phone call I overheard. I wanted him to step up and take responsibility.” Joanna looked at her. “I wanted him to meet you and try and form some sort of relationship. He refused. Flimsy excuses to begin with—he didn’t know where you were, he hadn’t taken details.” She pulled a face. “We had the biggest fight of our marriage.”