“I don’t wanna sit, Joey.” Lily threw her off. “I want to know what the hell is going on.”

“Please, Lil,” said Bea. “Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me what to fucking do.” Lily sank into the chair Grant shifted beneath her. “I just found out I have a brother. Him!” Lily’s eyes fixed on Leo’s for the first time. “Wait, Leo is my brother? I don’t get it.” That was the thing about those Winn eyes. You could see everything in them. “So you’re not my mom?”

“Mom is your mom, Lil…” Joey stood on her tiptoes and stroked the fuzzy strawberry hair on the perimeter of Lily’s forehead that poked out from under her headdress.

“Get off me, Joey!” Lily shoved her off and grabbed ahold of the didgeridoo. “So then, what? Daddy’s not my daddy?”

“Oh, Lil.”

Lily held the didgeridoo to her chest. “I want you all to tell me the truth.”

“Daddy’s not your biological dad.” Bea took a tentative step toward Lily. “But he’s your father in every way that counts. I’m so sorry you’re finding out this way. I’m so sorry, baby. Lily Pad, come here. I’ll explain it, and maybe you can understand—”

“Understand what? That you’ve been lying to me my entire life?” Bea’s head jerked like she’d been slapped. “That you had an affair with—wait a minute—Leo’s father?”

“Lily,” said Grant. “You have to know—”

“Shut up!” screamed Lily. She clapped her hands over her ears. “Shut up, shut up! You’re not even family. Shut the hell up.”

“Lily!” said Joey. “That’s so rude! And he is family!”

“You all knew?” Lily glanced from person to person. “All of you? Leo?”

Joey watched all of their frozen faces reflected in the glass door.

“Lily, I…” Leo closed his eyes.

“Even Daddy?” asked Lily in a heartbreakingly weak lilt. Joey berated herself for anytime in the past week she’d subconsciously blamed Lily for this. This wasn’t Lily’s fault. Lily was the casualty.

“Dad doesn’t know.” Bea’s lips were chapped and pursed. “Dad doesn’t know, baby.”

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” said a voice from the side of the house.

Joey saw his white legs before she saw his face. Those skinny white legs in khaki shorts such a pale shade of beige they practically melded with his skin tone. He must have come from the gravel path that began at the driveway and ended at the steps on the far side of the patio.

The words weren’t comporting for Joey. Joey’s eyes traveled to her father’s face. It was devoid of surprise, not gelling with the magnitude of the shock waves.

“I actually do know,” whispered Scott, and as he hung his head, Joey’s world tipped off its axis.

*  *  *

“You know?” said Bea. “How could you know?”