Chapter 24: Ask Me Again

Three hundred people stood up as I walked in.

I saw my mother at the front table in her good blue dress, and Rafe's mother beside her, both of them pretending to look at the centerpiece.

I saw the people from the clinic, with the receptionist waving both hands.

I saw the preschool teacher, and a man from the bagel place on Davis, and the young lawyer from the courtroom.

I saw the retriever, wearing a bow tie, waiting patiently beside the stage.

"Okay," Ivy said, and turned around with her clipboard. "You stay here. We're going up."

"Ivy..."

"It's the schedule."

The three of them marched down the aisle in a row, with Teddy in the middle in his clip-on tie.

Rory carried a paper cup in both hands.

I knew that cup.

It had gone to a laboratory once, and he had been guarding it ever since.

Teddy climbed the steps. A guard lifted him up to the microphone, and the room went quiet.

"Hello," he said, and the speakers made a small squeal. "We are the Eastlakes. I am Teddy. This is Ivy. That is Rory. He is holding the cup."

Rory held up the cup.

People laughed, warmly, and I put my hand over my mouth.

"A while ago," Teddy said, "we did a test. The result said that Rafe Hartwell is our father."

"We would like to do another one," Ivy said, taking the microphone down to her height.

She opened an envelope with enormous care.

"It's a very important question," she said. "Teddy, read the question."

Teddy took the paper.

He read it slowly, the way he read everything, with his finger under each word.

"The question is: Is it even mine?"

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