Chapter 86

Of course, Quinn’s father—if indeed the man who had yet to appear was his father—had not loved his mother. He had merely serviced a young woman who had too much to drink one night and took a dare from the friends who had always been more important to her than family, earning a souvenir she neither wanted nor thought she could get rid of.

Tjok’s mother, Pina, disappeared into the kitchen, returning with oolong tea in a red, yellow, and blue teapot with a dragon pattern and a bamboo handle and matching cups, along with a plateful of ginger cookies.

“My husband in back,” she said. “He not well.”

Her eyes pooled. “He dying. Please. You wait. I tell him, then you come.”

Up until then, Quinn had been enjoying the house, the tea, the cookies, and the young, curious faces that peered at him and Tam and that belonged, he assumed, to Pina’s younger children.