Dropping her keys into her purse, Bliss stopped at the fireplace and decided to tell the truth. No reason to pussyfoot. She and these newfound sisters had a lot of ground to cover if they were to ever get along. That, she decided, staring into Tiffany’s eyes, was a mighty big if. “Of course, I resented Brynnie when I first found out about her. How could my father—my father—have carried on an affair for so many years? I knew he was no knight in shining armor—”

Tiffany snorted her agreement.

“But I thought he had more morals than a tomcat.” She shoved a shank of hair around her ear. “I was all set to hate Brynnie on sight. This was the woman who had defiled my mother’s reputation, had been the ‘love of my father’s life,’ who had been married a zillion times and had let another man claim Katie as his when she was really Dad’s. It was crazy. Like I’d just walked Through the Looking-Glass or entered The Twilight Zone.”

“But you accept it?”

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I? I mean, I can’t tell my father what to do and anyway, as far as I was concerned, the damage was already done.”

“To your mother.”

“Yes, and to my idea of what my family was.” Bliss sighed. “So I fought it for a while, decided I couldn’t do anything and then, of course, I met Brynnie.”

Tiffany walked to the window and stared through the panes to the front porch. “And let me guess how this little fairy tale ends—you fell in love with her, too, and now we’re supposed to all be one big happy family.”

“Wrong. I thought I’d hate my father’s mistress on sight. And I decided I could live with that. You know, be outwardly civil while inwardly cold. But—and I wouldn’t want my mother, if she were alive, to hear this—Brynnie’s a hard person to hate.”

Tiffany didn’t respond, just ran a finger along the windowpane as she stared outside.

“So-o-o, I’m trying to put all my prejudices away if I can. I’m trying to convince myself that it’s time to look forward, not backward. But if you want to know the truth, I’m having a rough time with all of it, okay? It’s not easy, but there it is.” She lifted a palm.

“There are always choices,” Tiffany argued, though she didn’t elaborate and Bliss guessed that she was talking about her own private problems.

“Dad didn’t give you many.”

Tiffany paled. then said, “No, he didn’t. And you probably want to know how I felt about it. Well, I felt rotten. Once Mom came clean and told me the truth, I was sick to think that he didn’t love me enough to claim me.”