When Amy was five years old, she had gotten separated from Jack and Doug at the mall. Actually, she'd separated herself from them on purpose. They had promised to take her to the toy store when they were done with their errands, but had instead spent what she felt was an inordinate amount of time browsing in the men's clothing department. Bored, cranky, and feeling just a little spiteful, she wandered away when they weren't watching and set off to find the toys by herself. She had become hopelessly lost almost immediately, and to this day she remembered the feeling of panic, confusion, and regret that had gripped her when she realized that not only couldn't she find where she had intended to go, but she couldn't find her way back, either.

She'd probably only been lost for ten minutes or so, but it felt like an eternity. Towering clothing racks blocked her view, adults rushed past in a blur of unfamiliar legs, and she fought tears with every ounce of strength and determination her little heart could muster. She felt like she might wet her pants, and the horror of that potential humiliation joined forces with the general terror that threatened to consume her. She still remembered the sweeping, knee-buckling wave of relief that crashed down when Dougie's voice rang out from behind her. "Jack, over here," he'd called over his shoulder as he spotted her, standing small and wide-eyed and frozen in the middle of the shoe department. Amy charged him and threw her arms around his leg, clinging to it like a drowning person to a life raft. He bent down and plucked her off, lifting her up into his strong arms. "Amy Lindley, you know better than to walk away from us," he scolded as he hugged her, too relieved to be really angry.

Jack joined them, and as Amy was transferred from Doug's arms to his, she began to cry softly. "Thank God," Jack muttered into the baby-fine tendrils of her hair, hugging her tightly against his chest. "You scared us, sweetheart, you scared us so bad. Don't ever do that again!"

And as she clung to his neck and cried and breathed in his familiar Daddy scent, she had sworn that she wouldn't. That she would stay with him forever, and never leave his side again. It was a baby promise, naïve words from innocent lips—but she had meant it from the bottom of her heart.

She sat on the edge of the pier and swung her legs over the black night waters, random snatches of her mother's words on a battered stack of stationery flashing through her mind.

…he wasn't capable of being the kind of father you deserved … he wasn't worthy of you, and he would never be able to appreciate the honor the way I did, right from the beginning … the way Jack did … but there was nothing left for us … love is not fazed one way or the other by DNA … I hope you understand that, and that you hold on to it and always remember where you came from …

Her father was out there somewhere. On some level, she supposed she'd always known he must be. She wasn't naïve, and by the time she reached an age at which the standard grown-up responses to difficult questions children raise would no longer suffice, she had pieced together her own makeshift version of her parents' story. A slip-up here and there had helped her fill in the gaps—Pacey forgetting she was in the room and saying something about "Jen's deadbeat sperm donor" before being shushed by a loudly cleared throat and a sharp look; an overheard conversation between Jack and Joey about some long-ago reunion of their friends, including a newly pregnant Jen, who was "still reeling from the breakup, she was just too proud to admit it," Joey had said. "And the whole time she was focused on us, not her own problems. Not her own heartache." And Jack had replied softly, reflectively, "Yeah, that was our Jen."

But seeing Jen's own description of the events preceding Amy's birth had actually eased Amy's constant, underlying uneasiness about her biological father. Her mom hadn't said he was a terrible person. He wasn't abusive, or evil, or any of those monstrous things she had tried not to imagine all these years. It sounded to her like he had just been dedicated to his work, too much so to give back his share in their relationship. So that didn't necessarily make for the greatest father-type, but it was certainly nothing to condemn him for. Amy didn't condemn him, she realized with relief. She couldn't condemn him. He was a real relative, a blood relative. And as much as she adored the men who had raised her and the others at the periphery of their patchwork family who'd had a hand in doing so, the magnetic pull of a real father tugged at her heart and her mind.

Don't ever walk away from us again, Amy.

I won't, Daddy, I won't! I was so scared.

I know you were, sweetheart. Just hold onto Daddy's hand, okay? That's my girl. Hold my hand tight, and you'll never get lost again. We'll stick together from now on, right Aim? Good girl.

Something else tugged at her heart as well. Something that had a sharp, sour edge, something that settled heavily on her chest as if it planned to be there for a while. She had an idea that it was guilt.

"Nothing for me to feel guilty about," she said aloud, her voice strangely flat in the still night air. "It's not like I'd be betraying them."

Jack was still sitting on the counter in the kitchen with the letter clutched in his hand when Amy came back inside. She thought he looked like he'd been crying, and she considered sneaking past the doorway and slipping upstairs so he wouldn't have to let her see that if he didn't want to. But he looked up when the door opened, and their gazes locked, and he beckoned her toward him.

"I'm tired," she said hesitantly. "I'm going to bed."

"Not yet, you're not," he said, surprisingly firm. "Come here for a minute, Amy. Sit down."

She perched on the edge of one of the kitchen chairs, looking at him expectantly, a little fearfully, not knowing what he wanted from her. Was he going to forbid her to do what her own mother had expressly consented to before her death? Could he possibly do that? He didn't speak for so long that she wondered if he even knew what he wanted to say. Finally, he cleared his throat and fixed his eyes on hers steadily. They were red-rimmed, but straightforward, strong. The tears she suspected had been there before were gone now.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

That was the last thing she had expected. She was taken aback for a few moments, not sure what to say, not sure, in fact, what she planned to do. "What do you mean?" she asked, stalling.

"I want to know if you plan to pursue this."

"If I plan to—" she drifted off, puzzled. "I don't know," she said defensively, shaking her head, not wanting to have this conversation right now. Not now, with tears drying on her dad's face and a crystal-clear memory of being lost in a department store playing repeatedly, for some unfathomable reason, in the theater of her mind.

"I think you do know," he countered. "I think you know very well."

"What do you want to hear?"

"The truth, Amy. I want you to tell me the truth." He shook the letter in the air. "Are you going to use this information to try to find your—your father?" He tripped over the word, his lip curling in an involuntary reaction of distaste.

Amy was stunned at the sound of that word coming from his lips. It sounded wrong. It sounded hurtful. She stared at him with wide blue eyes, wondering if the anger she saw and sensed in him was directed at her, at her mother, at her biological father … or just at a world that would pile disastrous coincidences on top of one another until the resulting situation resembled the one they now faced. She had no way of knowing.

"I don't know," she repeated. Then, when his gaze didn't waver, "I'd like to try."

He nodded, his lips pursing together so tightly they became a thin white line. "I figured as much," he said.

"Dad…"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, Amy," he interrupted. "It's none of my business what you do about this."

"Dad, please. I mean, are you … is this …" she faltered, knowing what she meant but not how to say it. "Are we okay?"

He lowered himself off the counter and walked over to her chair. She thought he was going to hug her, but instead, he tossed the letter onto the table in front of her with a casual flick of the wrist. "I love you, Amy. You know that," he said.

Words that perhaps should have brought comfort, reassurance, but didn't. Not in the almost bitter, defeated tone he used, not when he turned his back on her and walked out of the kitchen without a backward glance. She sat there for a long time, staring after him, silent and hurt and guilty. The letter lay before her, a relic of the past with far-reaching implications, ripples in a sea of relative calm—heavy with the potential for broken hearts.