“I’d give anything to achieve that shade of purple, Miss Betty,” I say, testing out the name she gave me on the phone. Our call was brief. Once I gave her my name, she invited me right over. I’ve barely had time to plan what I am going to say or do. She has no such qualms, however, and immediately wraps me in a hug. I close my eyes, inhaling Estée Lauder and cookies. I’m trying not to overthink this, but it’s easy to get caught up playing the “do we have the same attached earlobes?” game.

She closes the door behind us and gestures to a small but beautiful sitting area with a floral love seat and a Tiffany lamp. The variety of colors shouldn’t work together, but they do. I sit across from Betty, and she offers me a drink. Wiping my hands down my cutoff shorts, I decline.

“Miss Betty, I need to be honest with you, I only learned about Andrew—my dad”—I swallow hard against the awkwardness of his unfamiliar name in my throat—“three days ago, and I’m pretty—”

“Good gracious, child. Three days ago?”

I nod. “So, this is very strange for me. Not this,” I say, gesturing around her room. “This is lovely. I’m just not sure of the, um, etiquette … for a visit like this.”

Betty frowns, leaning forward to peer at me through her zebra-print frames. “Three days,” she repeats softly.

“Yeah. Yes,” I amend, remembering my manners. I used to volunteer at the nursing home near my house in Ann Arbor. Those ladies were brutal when it came to good manners. They could generally overlook my piercings as long as I said please and thank you without prompting.

“I wondered,” Betty says, seeming to come back to herself. “I’ve been writing for so long, and your mother would send me your photo every year. I watched you get older and more beautiful, but you never wrote. I thought maybe you didn’t want anything to do with us.”

My shoulders slump. “I didn’t know, none of it. Not about him or how he died, about the letters, about anything.” And then everything is pouring out of me at once. Growing up in a strict home, church, graduating early, my plans for a gap year and working at the Bible camp leading to the revelation that my dad wasn’t my dad and my parents choosing to divorce as soon as I found out the truth.

“It’s like he’s been waiting for the minute he could be free of us. I don’t know if they ever even loved each other. And all this time, she’s been clinging to an illusion for me.” My stomach churns when I consider the role my mom has been playing for eighteen years.