My husband kissed me goodbye and told me he'd be in Munich for a week. Ninety minutes later my flight collapsed on the tarmac, so I stepped into the airline club — and there he sat with a strange woman and a little boy who called him Daddy. — usnews

Adrian left the house at 4:30 the next morning. I left through the garage at 4:37.

Diane was waiting in a gray SUV a block down, in black trousers and a camel coat and the expression she used to wear when lawyers lied in her courtroom. She handed me a coffee.

"You look terrible."

"Thank you."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Wilmington. The identity center." She pulled out. "Whoever renewed your father's certificate passed a live facial scan yesterday at 3:14 p.m. Ninety-seven percent match to the original record."

"He was cremated, Diane."

"I keep saying that." She glanced at me. "How much do you actually know about your father's family?"

"Everything. My grandparents died before I was born. He was an only child."

"That's what his official bio says. Last night I found a sealed probate matter out of Pennsylvania. 1986. Restricted by a federal judge."

"You were a federal judge."

"I made a call. The file involved your grandfather."

"My grandfather died in 1980."

"According to the sealed record, a man calling himself Thomas Vance turned up in Pennsylvania in 1986. Six years after Thomas Vance was buried."

The coffee went sour in my mouth. "That's not funny."

"I'm not joking. Apparently dead people are very busy in your family."

We pulled into an underground garage beneath a blank glass building. Diane parked and didn't get out.

"Before we go in," she said. "The little boy. I couldn't find his mother. But I found his birth certificate."

She handed me her tablet.

The child was listed as Micah Walter Vance. Father: unknown. Mother: sealed by court order.

I read it three times. "Vance."

"Yes."

"That could be a coincidence."

"It could." She didn't believe it, and neither did I. "He's five years and eight months old."

I did the math without meaning to. Adrian and I had been married ten years. Five and a half years ago — the year that boy was born — Adrian had surprised me with a month in Tuscany. He'd talked about trying for a baby. It was also the year I lost my second pregnancy.