Karen pushed back from the table so hard her chair scraped the floor. “There,” she said. “You happy now? You dragged me three hours for that?” Her eyes were wet and mean at the same time. “She always picked you. Even when you were screaming at her, she picked you.”

I should have stopped. Any decent sister would have closed the book and gone and hugged her. But I didn’t. I was sitting there feeling vindicated, like I’d earned something, and instead of letting it rest I flipped to the very back, to the last thing Mom ever wrote. I don’t know why. I think part of me wanted one more line to wave in Karen’s face.

The last entry was barely legible. The handwriting had gone all loose and shaky, the way it did near the end. It was dated four days before she died. Four days. Karen was still standing by the counter with her arms crossed, but she came back when she saw my face change.

“What,” she said. “What does it say.”

I read it slow because the words were hard to make out. “I need to tell both my girls something.” My voice came out wrong. “About their father. About why he really left.”

Karen sat back down. Just lowered herself into the chair like her legs gave out. We were both leaning over it now, heads almost touching, the way we used to when we were little and reading under the covers.

“It wasn’t the drinking,” Mom had written. The next part she’d pressed so hard the pen tore the paper a little. “He found out Diane wasn’t his. I let him think the worst of himself so he’d go quiet. So nobody would ever know.”

I read it three times before it went in. Diane wasn’t his. That’s me. I’m Diane.

The kitchen got so quiet I could hear the clock over the stove. Karen had her hand over her mouth. There was one more line, smaller, like Mom ran out of room or out of nerve. It said, “I gave her the house because I owed her a father and never gave her one. It was never about trust. It was about the only thing I had left to give her.”