We adopted you when you were just three weeks old. You were a foundling and then you found your way to us. We couldn’t have loved you more if you had been our own flesh and blood, and we never thought of you as anyone but our very own precious daughter. But when you grew up, I thought you had the right to know the truth. I wanted to tell you, but your mum was afraid that we would lose you, or at least a part of you. It would have killed her and so I kept quiet. And once your mum was gone it seemed like it was too late. Too much water under the bridge. But in the end, I couldn’t meet my maker without making my peace with you. You have the right to know and you shouldn’t have to find out from anyone else. Maybe I was a coward not telling you to your face, but my darling, darling Billie, I couldn’t have taken it if you had been disappointed in us. Please know that we both loved you to the moon and back . . .

It was what they had always told her as a little girl when she went to bed. She believed it then and she believed it still. But now she knew she was a cuckoo who had been fortunate enough to land in a very comfortable nest. A mysterious genetic synthesis of two complete strangers. A question mark.