“It was good,” I say, plopping down next to him and leaning on him.

“I miss seeing you in shows,” he says, putting his arm around me.

“You’ll get to hear me sing a solo in the holiday concert,” I tell him, settling into his warmth. “A descant in ‘Silent Night.’”

“A descant.” He tilts his head. “Is that from the Latin discantus, I wonder?”

I gaze at him fondly. “No clue.”

He doesn’t give up. “Is it a song apart from? Apart from the melody?”

“Yes! Exactly. Good work.”

He beams. “And it’s a solo? Just you?”

“Yes, Dad. Just me. Solo, from the Latin solo.”

“That’s awesome sauce,” he says, nudging me a little.

“Dad, no.” I laugh, shaking my head. He uses what he thinks is hip lingo strictly as a means to torture me.

“Well, speaking of Jesus . . .” he says.

I scoff. “When were we speaking of Jesus?”

“‘Silent Night’!” He gestures, like duh. “‘Round yon virgin? Mother and child’?”

Ugh, he’s got me.

“Why don’t you watch the end of this show with me? It might change everything you ever thought about Pontius Pilate.”

I roll my eyes. “I barely know who Pontius Pilate was,” I tell him, which is a rookie mistake. He is only too delighted to pause the show to give me some not-abridged-enough version of Bible history.

“Thanks, Dad,” I say, getting up. “You can tell me how it ends over breakfast.”

“But I can’t!” he says. “We have to head out early in the morning.”

“Oh, darn.”

He mock-glares at me as he realizes I set it up. He makes a fist and says, “Why I oughta . . .”

I lean over and hug him. “Good night, Dad.”

He holds on to me a beat longer than usual. “Good night, seventeen.”

I smile at the acknowledgment of my birthday tomorrow, but when I pull away, my heart tugs at the emotion on his face.

“I love you, Zo,” he says, trying to smile.

“I love you, too, Dad.”

Up in my room, I change into pajamas and think about the things Sam and I talked about. There are so many aspects to consider. There is the whole unknown, which is most of it: the infinite field of things I could find out, the question of who they are and what they’re like . . .

But there is a smaller field of what is more knowable (or guessable, anyway), which is how my parents will feel if I search for my biological family. I can’t bear the possibility of their being hurt, of their thinking this reflects in any way on them — that they aren’t enough, that I don’t think they’ve been good enough to me.