I don’t respond. When the rift happened, I didn’t understand anything except we were moving away and I didn’t get to see Kimba anymore. That was all I cared about. When I was older, I replayed that night over and over in my head and started assembling the fragments into something that, though horrific, made some kind of sense. Our parents had an affair. I had no idea who cheated with whom, or even if my speculation was right. But hearing Kimba say it aloud, I realize it may have been.

“It’s not true.” Kimba pushes up to sit and look down at me. “You know my father. He’d never…it’s a lie, Ezra. We have to prove it’s a lie. We have to talk to your mom so she knows they’re telling these lies about her. That they’re planning to publish these lies about my father.”

“Yeah.” I sit up and put my arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head. “We will.”

“Why don’t you sound shocked?” She pulls away, peers into my face in the moonlight. “You don’t believe this, do you?”

I stare back, wishing I had learned to lie to her, but I never did. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“Believe me.” She scrambles off the trampoline and walks swiftly back into the house. I heave a sigh and follow. She’s already up the stairs and in the guest bedroom by the time I join her. She jerks my T-shirt and boxers off, tossing them onto the bed and walking over to the chair where she draped her jumpsuit. She pulls it on and slides her feet into the high heels.

“Where are you going?” I ask, as if I don’t know.

“Home. I have to warn my family.” She stops and closes her eyes. “My mother. What am I going to tell her?”

“What did Piers say exactly?”

“He says there’s an early copy going around. Several people have read it, but it hasn’t been published yet. It paints my father as some kind of hypocrite for posturing himself as a civil rights activist and pillar of the community, which he was, while having an affair with your mother, which he wouldn’t do. I know in my bones they didn’t, Ez.”

Considering how evasive my mother has always been, I honestly don’t know what to believe. A tear slips down Kimba’s cheek, which she brushes away impatiently.

“I need to get home, tell my family, figure out a battle plan, including an injunction to shut this shit down before it hits bookstores.” She grabs her bag from the bench at the foot of the bed, pausing to look at me. “Can you talk to your mom and find out why anyone would lie about this? Help me get to the bottom of it?”