Gabby’s instinct was to come out swinging, but she shoved down all the excuses and explanations and gave her daughter the truth. “I did. I had my reasons and convinced myself they were valid. Maybe at the time they were, but that doesn’t make things easier now.”

“You blamed Aunt Natalie.”

Gabby owed Liam for one more thing. He’d been the one stuck there, fielding the anger and the first round of uncomfortable questions.

“Liam said you were trying to protect her. That you thought the truth would rip the family apart and leave Aunt Natalie in danger.” Kennedy let out a dramatic exhale. “But you expect us to believe you lied just to save Aunt Natalie from having a bad day?”

Gabby remembered how the family had talked about Natalie back then, carefully and in hushed tones. No one had wanted to upset her or say the one thing that would touch off a depressive spin. It had felt necessary, but it was insulting. They had treated her as if she couldn’t hear their whispers . . . as if she didn’t get a say in her own life. Gabby saw that now.

Even worse, hiding the truth and covering for Natalie’s absences with lame excuses like she has a migraine and can’t leave the house or she got behind because she was sick and couldn’t come this time meant Kennedy didn’t understand the extent of her aunt’s debilitation. “It was more than that. She needed her brothers’ support—both of them—to survive.”

“Okay, but what about after the fire?” Kennedy asked.

The fire that killed her. The one that changed everything for Gabby by giving her the push she needed to end a marriage that had never worked. “Your aunt died right before the divorce started. Telling the truth about Uncle Liam would have weaponized you, potentially driven a deep division between Liam and your dad.”

It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was as much of the truth as Gabby could tell.

“Liam is my dad.” Kennedy’s sarcasm disappeared as quickly as it appeared, taking some of the hot wind behind her words with it. “Apparently.”

Gabby had expected swearing and hundreds of I hate you diatribes, but Kennedy was giving her a more nuanced discussion. One that suggested she might be ready to hear part of the truth. “Fatherhood isn’t just biology, Kennedy. Your father figured out the truth about your conception. He secretly took items and did a DNA test then confronted me with the results.”

“He suspected?”