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She doesn’t know the half of it.

We watch a few minutes then go check in on Faith, who is planted in front of cartoons while she draws.

“What’s up with her tongue?” Kappy asks.

Faith’s tongue is pressed to her upper lip, something she does when she’s extra focused.

I shrug. “She just does it when she’s concentrating. My cousin did it too.”

Kappy glances from Faith to me. She lays her hand on my forearm. “Can I say something? It’s going to make you mad.”

I raise a brow at her. “Then maybe you just shouldn’t say it.”

She winces. “I feel like I sort of need to?” She glances at Faith across the room. “Is there any chance she might be, uh, your cousin’s kid?”

I stare at her, then choke on a laugh. “Oh my gosh, Kappy. What on earth?”

She squeezes my forearm, asking me to hear her out. “Look, I’m just saying...there’s a lot of weird shit here, and I’d already noticed it. It’s incredibly rare for two blue-eyed parents to have a kid with brown eyes. Incredibly rare. I looked it up. Like, one in a hundred at most.”

I throw out my hands. “Then she’s one in a hundred! That happens.”

“That’s not all,” she says. “Your cousin’s kid would be Faith’s age, right? You said you were ten when she was pregnant and Faith’s eight?”

My laughter is slightly more exasperated than it was. “Yeah, so my cousin and my mother were pregnant at the same time, along with a million other women. I mean...we have a hundred and fifty kids in our senior class, so a hundred and fifty kids at Penhallow born the same year. Give me a break.”

“Yeah, but you once said your mom didn’t even look pregnant with Faith. Pretty weird for a third kid, right? My mom said she looked five months pregnant with me before she ever took a test—your stomach just pops.”

I’m too furious to even pretend I’m not. How dare she accuse my parents of...what is she even saying? Is she saying they took someone’s baby? My parents? “This is an insane discussion, Kappy. Seriously. You’re jumping to crazy conclusions based on nothing and trying to say my parents stole someone’s baby? I mean...seriously. That’s unhinged.”

Her lips press together as if I’m straining her patience when she’s the one who’s gone way, way too far. “I didn’t say that they stole Faith,” she says. “What if they adopted her, though? What if your cousin was too young or too unbalanced to raise a kid, so they adopted her and pretended she was theirs?”

I groan. “Why would they lie about it? My dad never misses a chance to get praised for something. And if they took in someone’s kid, everyone at Bright Covenant would constantly tell him how wonderful he is.”

She hitches a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe, for Faith’s sake, they didn’t want her going through life being treated like a charity case. I sure wouldn’t want to hear a million people telling my mom she’s a saint to put up with me, even though she actually is. Maybe they didn’t want everyone knowing she had a schizophrenic mom. You’re the one who said people care about that stuff there.”

“I’m not participating in this conversation,” I say, with my jaw locked. “You’re implying my parents are liars, and Faith isn’t my sister, and I find the whole thing deeply insulting. Turn on the show before my sister wanders in here.”

Her mouth opens, then closes. She unpauses the show. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have thought about how it sounded.”

“It’s okay,” I reply, though nothing about my tone implies that it’s okay.

And it sort of isn’t. Because I’m thinking of my mother telling me Faith had lost more than I had. How everyone marveled at my mother’s miracle baby when she was told she couldn’t have more kids. I’m thinking of all the people, so many people, who’ve looked at my sister and said, “It’s weird that she looks nothing like you.” Who’ve said, “Where’d she get that blonde hair?” to my mother. And “Where’d she get those brown eyes?” And the way my mother would slightly stiffen when the question was posed before she’d claim that she, too, was blonde as a child.

Except...she wasn’t blonde as a child. Her hair was lighter, sure, but it wasn’t pale blonde like Faith’s.

The show ends just as my mother texts to say she’s outside. I can’t name a single thing I’ve watched for the last half hour.

Karla wanders out of the house to greet my mother, raving about Faith. “This cutie is welcome anytime,” she gushes.

“Are we cool?” asks Kappy, stopping me before I walk to the car.

“Of course,” I reply, giving her a hug.

“One more thing, Grace,” she says with a reluctant sigh. “The one-sided dimple? Also super heritable. I looked it up during Outlander. The odds of her having that dimple when none of the rest of you do is...crazy rare, bordering on impossible.”

I turn on my heel without saying a word.

Without admitting that Mary Joyce had a dimple just like that.