Chapter 4: Ninety-Nine Point Nine

The email came on Wednesday while I was ringing up a customer's box of wood screws.

I read the subject line twice and set the phone face down by the register.

I finished the sale, and I made change, and I said, "Have a good one."

Then I went into the stockroom and read the rest.

Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.

Under it, in smaller letters, were two names.

Rhett Ketterman.

Effie Linden.

I read it standing between a pallet of paint and a rack of garden hoses.

It was the first time I had seen his full name on paper.

It was an ordinary name, and now it was attached to my daughter's.

At six o'clock that evening, he knocked on my kitchen door with the printout in his hand.

He had not slept either.

Effie was at the table with her crayons, drawing a horse with a number of legs I could not count.

"Captain," she said, without looking up.

"Effie," he said.

"I'm making you a boat."

"Good. I need one."

He set the printout facedown on the counter and went to wash his hands at the sink.

Effie hopped off her chair and held both arms up at him.

"Up," she said. "I want to see the boat from higher."

He glanced at me.

I nodded.

Rhett set the cane against the cabinet, bent, and lifted her onto his right hip.

He took one step toward the table, and his left leg folded.

He caught the counter with one hand and kept Effie against his chest with the other, and he did not drop her.

He lowered her down very gently onto her chair.

"Captain, you're bleeding," Effie said.

I looked.

There was a dark patch spreading down the thigh of his jeans.

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