Nathaniel took me into a private office and showed me a photograph on his phone. The woman staring back at me could have been my older sister. Her name was Celeste Ashford—Nathaniel’s younger sister. She had died when I was an infant, but her daughter had survived. After a complicated custody case and a private adoption, Nathaniel lost contact with the child and had spent years trying to locate her. My birth date, middle name, and adoption timeline matched. He did not pretend resemblance was proof. With my permission, his attorney later obtained the available adoption records, and a DNA test confirmed it: Nathaniel was my biological uncle. Juliet was my cousin.
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