walk past with his phone raised, catching the whole thing in one photo.
My phone buzzed inside my bag right as it happened. I let the first two calls go to voicemail, trying to find words that wouldn’t make everything worse before I finally answered on the walkway outside. By then Mark had already seen the photo.
There would be no gentle, planned introduction after all.
“He deserves to hear all of it tonight,” I told Cassidy afterward.
“I understand.”
On the drive home, Toby went quiet in the back seat, sensing something he couldn’t quite name.
Cassidy stared out the window. “What if he doesn’t want me anywhere near his family?”
This time, I didn’t pretend to already know the answer.
***
Back in the present, Renee finally went quiet at our kitchen table.
“Mark. The baby my father made me give up twenty-six years ago was your daughter too,
