The black screen stared back at me like an open wound.
“Come alone if you want to learn why Daniel married you.”
The words repeated inside my head until they became deafening.
I turned toward my parents.
“Who is Claire?”
Neither answered.
“She’s your daughter, isn’t she? Your real daughter.”
Mom opened her mouth, but no words came.
Dad looked like a man watching floodwater reach his front door.
“Tell me.”
Outside, the rain had turned into a storm.
Maybe it had been raging for hours.
I hadn’t noticed.
Mom stepped toward me slowly.
“Claire was the child of a witness we protected,” she said.
“In the case. The one that collapsed.”
“Yes.”
“And you raised her? With me?”
Dad finally spoke.
“We tried.”
“Tried?”
“She was difficult.” His voice cracked. “Wild. Angry.”
“A sleepy suburban rebellion or something worse?”
Mom winced.
“We sent her to private schools. Therapists. She burned through all of it.”
Dad looked toward the window.
“When she was seventeen, she found out about the witness protection.”
