Cecily looked back and forth between her aunt and the man she was learning to love. Something terrible was passing between them and the truth of it was shimmering just out of her reach.

Solo turned to her.

“Do you want the truth?” he asked.

“Yes,” she told him without hesitation.

“Your father is Dirk Malcolm,” he said.

Cecily blinked.

“No, he had a fling with Aunt Stacy,” she said.

“No,” Aunt Stacy said. “He had a fling with your mother.”

“I don’t understand,” Cecily said.

“Your mom and I were still living at home with Grandma and Grandpa,” Aunt Stacy said. “Your mom was a senior in high school, I was nineteen and working at the hair salon. When they came here to film that movie the whole town went crazy. “

“You guys used to talk about that,” Cecily said.

“Anyway, your mom met Dirk at the record store,” Aunt Stacy went on. “She was young and so lovely and shy. But they took to each other immediately. When he asked her name she got nervous and gave him mine instead.”

“She never liked being Agnes,” Cecily said.

“Exactly,” Aunt Stacy said. “They snuck off together whenever they could. On his last night in town, I slept in her bed so she could go out with him.”

“You had a later curfew because you were older,” Cecily guessed.

“Yeah,” Aunt Stacy said. “Or because I was a lost cause.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Anyway, they had quite a romantic evening out at the gorge. But he told her before anything happened that his career was taking off and that he wasn’t in a good place to have a relationship. She knew what she was getting into. She made her choices in spite of that.”

Cecily nodded. That sounded like her mom, fair and practical, but not a person to cut the fun out of her life.

“She took him at his word,” Aunt Stacy said. “And though she shed some tears when they all left town, she never held it against him. He’d been honest with her. She would only say that she missed him and wished she had something to remember him by.”

Cecily bit her lip.

“She missed her period the next month,” Aunt Stacy said. “I went to the drug store for her and got her a test. Sure enough, she was pregnant. So he had left her something to remember him by after all.”

Solo put a hand on Cecily’s back and she was grateful for the comfort.

“Dirk sent her a whole bunch of letters in the months after that,” Aunt Stacy said. “But your mother would never have allowed him to give up his career for you two. She knew he was too honorable not to do the right thing by her if he ever found out about you. So she ignored the letters and soon enough they stopped coming. I know because they were all addressed to me. She never did tell him the truth about her name. Of course Coleen at the post office couldn’t keep her mouth shut, so the whole town new about it before long. It was good thing he had my name, or it would have all been too obvious. Even as it was, I was pretty surprised no one ever put it together.”

“Wow,” Cecily breathed.

“And your mom did give you a good life, all by herself, didn’t she?” Aunt Stacy asked.

“She sure did,” Cecily nodded.

“Anyway, I have no idea how, but your boyfriend is right. Dirk did come here today. He left not an hour ago,” Aunt Stacy went on. “He wasn’t looking for you, and I didn’t tell him anything about a child. But he did let me know that I could reach out to him if I ever needed anything, and if I ever wanted to talk about your mom.”

Aunt Stacy pulled a card out of her pocket and slid it across the table. “In case you want to call him yourself.”

Cecily shook her head, and stood up.

“Please don’t be angry with him, Cecily,” Aunt Stacy said. “He doesn’t know. He loved her. He just didn’t realize it in time. And… and please don’t be too angry with me either. My little sister was my world. I couldn’t break her trust. I love you, Cecily.”

Cecily bit back her anger and her sadness.

“I’m upset, Aunt Stacy,” she said carefully. “But I’ll get over it. Right now I need to leave.”

“I understand, honey,” Aunt Stacy said. “I’ll be here when you’re ready. Whenever that is.”

Cecily nodded and headed through the curtains and into the nail salon, and from there out onto the sidewalk.

She could hear Solo jogging to catch up with her.

“Do you want to tell everyone what’s going on, or should I?” Solo asked gently.

She turned and saw that their friends were approaching, looking curious.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it,” she said. “Would you mind filling them in? I just kind of want to sit down for a minute.”

“Of course,” he said, squeezing her shoulders and pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Cecily lowered herself onto the bench overlooking Main Street as Solo headed toward their friends.

She took a deep breath, then let it sink in.

Dirk Malcolm is my father.

Cecily had wanted to know who her father was ever since she could remember, and the truth was that he was someone she had met professionally once or twice. She knew what he looked like. She knew the sound of his voice.

Hell, he was going to be in the movie she and her friends were working on. How was she going to deal with that?

All the information she’d spent a lifetime craving was hers now.

She looked out over the village streets she’d walked as a child, always thinking the sunshine would seem brighter, and the birds would sing more sweetly if she only knew who her father was.

And now she did.

But it was funny. The world seemed just the same as before.