“Go on,” said Alice. “Look inside.”

Ruth opened the cover to reveal the handwritten title of The Zoo Chronicles: Tales from London Zoo. The first page had a clipping from the newspaper about Mr. Vinall, the penguin keeper, alongside Alice’s illustrations of the penguins jumping off the rock. Ruth took time to read it before turning the page and reading the article about Churchill’s gift of a lion, placed beside more of Alice’s illustrations. Then Ruth read the next page and the next, while Alice stood and watched, remembering the times she had worked on it, looking forward to the day she could read it to her daughter. Alice wondered what her mother thought of the animal stories her father had told her, and the tales she’d created since. Eventually Ruth reached the last page, which featured a photograph of Alice’s father in his zookeeper’s suit with the inscription: For my father, Frederick (Freddie) Charles Cotton, and his granddaughter, Eadie.

When Ruth looked up, her eyes were swimming with tears.

Alice waited, letting the moment linger as she savored the comforting memory of her father and the warmth of his love, allowing it to suffocate Ruth’s betrayal. “What would he say now?” Alice said coldly.

There was a silence, then Ruth cleared her throat. “I would never expect you to understand, that’s why I’ve never told you.”

“Well, why don’t you try now?”

Ruth rose to her feet and disappeared into the living room, returning with some papers that she handed to Alice: the birth certificates she’d been unable to find in the usual hiding place. The first was hers: Alice Elizabeth Cotton, born April 20, 1920. Father: Frederick Charles Cotton, Agriculturalist. Mother: Ruth Cotton, domestic servant.

She glanced up; there were no revelations here.

Ruth sat back down and nodded for her to carry on.

Alice unfolded the second piece of paper, expecting to see a similar birth certificate for her brother, but it was a form with only his name and date of birth: William Frederick Cotton, born May 22, 1918.

“What’s this?”

“I wanted a child so badly, Alice. Your father and I, we tried for so long.” Ruth wouldn’t look Alice in the eye, her gaze locking onto a place somewhere out of sight. “It was during the Great War, there was so much sadness and loss . . . so many unmarried mothers. So many babies without homes. This is what childless couples did then, what they’re still doing now.”

“What are you saying?”

“William—”

“He wasn’t yours?”

“He’s always been ours, Alice. Always wanted, loved, cherished.”

“And what about me . . . am I yours?”