“Don’t,” she said. “I’m glad to know. It’s better to find out for sure, rather than imagine it in my head, even if what I made up was a hell of a lot nicer than what reality turned out to be. Besides, if Tony Warshawski had really been my father, he’d seem like a pretty big sleaze moving Ma and me next door to you and Gabriella.”

She laughed, but I took her hand and held it. After a bit she said hesitantly, “I—this next part is hard to tell you, after all the insults I shouted at you about leaving the neighborhood. But I’m leaving, too. I’m moving away from Chicago, actually. I always wanted to live out in the country, the real country, so I’m going to Montana to study forestry. I never admitted it to anyone, because I thought if I wasn’t like you, doing social activism stuff, you know, that you would despise me.”

I gave an inarticulate squawk that made Peppy jump.

“No, really, Vic. But all these things I’ve been thinking about, well, I see you never wanted me to be like you. It was just part of my head trip, how I thought if I did the same things you did, you would like me well enough to let me really be part of your family.”

“No way, babe—I want you doing what’s good for you, not what’s right for me.”

She nodded. “So I applied out there and rushed everything through and I’m leaving in two weeks. I’m making Ma’s folks buy the house on Houston and that’s giving me the money to go. But I wanted to tell you in person, and I hope you meant it, that you’ll always be my sister, because, well, anyway, I hope you meant it.”

I knelt next to her chair and put my arms around her. “Till death do us part, kid.”