What Happened That Night

“No.”

“Hmm. I suppose the prosecutor thought he could get a conviction without having to put Ruth Anne through all that.”

“If he even knew about it,” I said. “Aunt Ruthie might not have told him.”

“Well, that’s probably true, given that she waited so long to tell your uncle.”

A beat of silence fell before he asked about Lia. “Is she doing okay?”

“I think so. Uncle Sal came over, and that helped.”

Troy’s gaze met mine. “You know what that means in regard to your father, right?”

I nodded. “It was my first thought. I feel like such a vulture.”

His eyes danced. “Well, it was my first thought too, so we can be vultures together.”

I lay down beside him and rested my head on his chest. Troy wrapped an arm around me and squeezed my shoulder. “When are you going to ask her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to appear too eager, but obviously I am.”

“Of course, you’re eager. A DNA test will either confirm or overturn your father’s conviction.”

“Confirm?” I lifted my head so I could see his face. “You still think he did it?”

“Hey.” He gave my shoulder another squeeze. “You know I’m a prosecutor, right? It’s my job to think he’s guilty.”

“What about the truth?”

He shrugged. “That’s the great thing about this situation. What happened to your aunt was horrible, but a simple DNA test will uncover the truth. Either you and Lia have the same father or you don’t.”

I nodded and laid my head back on his chest. “When do you think I should ask her?”

“The sooner the better, don’t you think?”

“I do. I’m just afraid of upsetting her by asking too soon. I want to be sensitive to her situation, but—”

“Your phone is pinging.” Troy leaned over and grabbed my purse from the floor.

As I retrieved my phone and saw the text from Lia, I laughed.

“What is it?” Troy asked.

“Apparently, she made the connection, too, because she wants to do it. She wants to take a DNA test tomorrow morning.”

Troy grinned. “Now you don’t have to be the one to bring it up. Problem solved.”

I hope so, I thought. I really hope so.

And I hoped with every fiber of my being the outcome of the test would show me what I wanted to know.

If it didn’t... well, I wouldn’t think about that right now. Instead, I’d focus on the father I saw in the home movies. The father whose letters I’d once cherished and kept in a shoebox. The father who seemed to love both my mother and me.