Fathers and Other Strangers

“Yeah. I remember Sandy. But you’ve got no proof I’m Blair’s father.”

“No, I don’t.” She picked up the photo from where she’d set it on the counter and handed it to him. “But you do.”

His gaze shot to hers; Jenna ached for the confusion in his eyes. “So why didn’t she tell me she was pregnant?”

“Sandy didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant. Until she showed up on my parents’ doorstep in her eighth month.” She paused. “She’d been using. The baby almost didn’t make it.”

He stared at her, hard, for several seconds, then walked over to the window, staring at his mother’s photograph in the light. There were a hundred things Jenna could have said. Not a single one of them would have made a bit of sense. So she waited.

“And you didn’t know about me until you read this diary?”

“No. I swear.”

“But that was…what was it you said? A few months ago?”

She almost smiled. “You don’t miss a single detail, do you?”

He didn’t smile back. “That’s why they paid me the big bucks.”

“It took a while to locate you,” she said and left it at that.

Hank was quiet for a moment or two, although Jenna could sense the tension writhing inside him. “Thought women were real funny about diaries. Reading someone else’s, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t have touched it while Sandy was alive, even if I’d known of its existence. But my sister was an enigma, to put it mildly.” She sighed. “Look, Blair thinks Sandy died from an overdose. Which is technically true. What she doesn’t know is that it was apparently deliberate.” Hank swore; Jenna went on. “So I thought maybe the diary would give me an insight or two into who the hell she was. Why she was so obviously unhappy. The last thing I expected was to stumble across a name she refused to reveal for thirteen years.”

Hank set the photograph on the table, then dragged his hand down his face. “I’m having a little trouble here…”