“A little.” She looks down at her colorful floral rug. “Enough, I guess.”

“Do you know that I have a mom?”

It’s such a foreign word to come out of my mouth, “mom.” There’s something not right about it.

I, of course, knew at one point that I had a mom. Everybody has or had a mother. But this fact—that the woman who gave birth to me is alive and has been looking for me—is something I can’t ignore. Her phone number burns in my back pocket. Only ten digits away from being connected to a voice that may have some answers, a voice I didn’t even know existed.

I try to place myself in her shoes. How she’s probably waiting by the phone to talk to me, her daughter. How she is happy I’ve been found.

I know I’m a total asshole for refusing to call her right now. For asking that she give me time. Time to figure out what to do. To see what I can even do. To see Dad. To get answers.

“Ally?” Marian’s waving her hand in front of my face. It’s a familiar gesture. Usually she has to get my attention when I’m busy thinking about a class assignment or my to-do list.

“Sorry,” I reply.

“You don’t need to apologize for anything. So … you have a mom?”

“Can we talk about something else?” While I brought her up, I realize that I want to shove her back down again. Just like I don’t want to talk about what my father did. If I concentrate too long on him, anger starts to bubble up.

“Of course.” She bites her lip. I’ve never seen her so unsure of herself. “Ah, so this probably isn’t a surprise or anything, but Neil is a nervous wreck right now. He really wants to talk to you. I had to shut off my phone because he was texting me every two minutes to see if you were here. It was everything to get him to go home so he couldn’t bombard you when you arrived.”

“So everybody knows.”

Marian flinches.

It was a stupid question. Of course they do. I knew it the second the police showed up on our block.

“Can I ask a favor?”

“Yes, whatever you need,” she replies.

“I know it’s going to be hard, but I don’t want this to change anything.”

A serious look spreads on her face. “We’ve already talked about it.” She didn’t need to clarify that the we is the Gleason clan. “And lives have been threatened if anybody even thinks about talking to the press.”

Her answer surprises me. I’m not worried about the media. I’m worried about this second family I’ve built over the years. “I don’t understand why the media will care.”