“I knew you lived next door when I bought that house.”

I actually laughed.

Just one sharp sound, because I was certain I had misunderstood him.

“What?”

“I didn’t end up beside you by accident, Abby.”

My husband reached for my hand.

I pulled it away—not because of him.

Suddenly, I needed both hands free.

“How did you know me?”

Walter looked older than I had ever seen him.

“After Margaret died, I took one of those ancestry tests.”

That explained nothing.

“Okay.”

“I wasn’t interested in finding out whether I was twelve percent this or twenty percent that.” He swallowed. “I was looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“My granddaughter.”

I stared at him.

His eyes stayed fixed on mine.

“Her name was Abby.”

I felt my husband turn toward me.

Before I could say anything, Walter continued.

“My daughter was named Kate. She had a baby when she was 19. A little girl she placed for adoption.”

Suddenly, the room felt much smaller.

“No,” I said.

Walter’s eyes filled with tears.

“Kate was your mother.”

I shot to my feet so quickly that my chair scraped across the floor.

“No.”

“Abby…”

“No. You don’t get to just say that.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

I had spent my entire childhood without knowing where I came from.

I’d been adopted as a baby, but that placement didn’t last.

Afterward came foster homes.

Some were decent.

Others weren’t.

None became permanent.

By adulthood, I had stopped imagining some perfect reunion where a woman who shared my eyes would suddenly appear and explain everything.

Still, years earlier, I had taken an ancestry test.

At first, I checked the results obsessively.

Mostly, I found distant relatives.

No one who could answer the questions that actually mattered.

Eventually, I stopped checking altogether.

I stared at Walter.

“Show me.”

He nodded immediately.

I brought out my laptop.