Harper looked at me, eighteen years old and carrying something far too heavy for a prom dress.
« My dad is your dad, » she said. « You’re my brother. Half, but still. He didn’t hire a stranger a year ago. He hired his own son and never told either of us. »
Outside the car, kids in rented tuxedos were laughing their way toward the music.
Inside the car, two of Roland’s children sat very still, learning they were two of Roland’s children.
Neither of us went to that dance.
Chapter 3: The Man Who Hired Me
We drove to an all-night diner instead, and Harper laid the folder out on the sticky table between us, and the whole backwards year turned around.
My mother had known Roland long ago — a brief, real thing, before he was wealthy, before Harper, before any of it.
When my mom got pregnant with me, Roland made a choice.
He walked away toward the easier, richer life, married someone else, and let my mother raise me on split paychecks and double shifts while he built a company and a comfortable house and a legitimate daughter.
