I did not confront him.
I called Grant Miller, a private investigator.
"I want to know who he is," I told him.
"That's all."
Two weeks later, he called me.
He asked me if I was sitting down.
I told him that I already was.
"Madam," he said, "this woman is part of your family."
I thought of a cousin.
A sister-in-law.
Someone further away.
Never, not for a single second, did I imagine that she was my own sister.
Until I opened the first photo.
Eric and Natalie leave a hotel in Brooklyn.
She was wearing the blouse he had bought her for her birthday.
That night, I realized that I had spent years sleeping next to a stranger and sharing Christmas dinners with another.
For four months, I kept that photo hidden. For four months, I smiled during Christmas dinner while Natalie sat next to me carving the turkey.
For four months, every time someone asked me how Eric and I were doing, I replied, "Everything's fine."
And now there he was, microphone in hand, announcing to the whole room something I had known for four months.
Everyone was looking at me.
They were hoping I would break down.
That she would weep inconsolably.
