It was okay to ask him for advice, but I didn’t want him worrying about me. And the thoughts in my mind were worrisome.Usually the dining room was empty unless we were eating; and Katrina had gotten into the habit of delaying dinner until I got home. Even though she had reverted to her old cheating ways, she still showed me respect in my home—I liked that.I walked in, expecting solitude, but instead I found Shelly sitting at the hickory dining table, looking perplexed.“Hi, Dad,” the dark-olive-skinned Asian girl said. She came over to me and kissed my cheek.We had not one strand of DNA in common, going back over twenty thousand years, but she didn’t know that and I didn’t care. Blood may be thicker than water, but family has them both beat.“Hey, babe,” I said to Katrina’s love child. “You look worried.”“Tatyana called,” she said.I turned a chair around and sat, heavily. “Oh? What did she say?”“She just asked to speak to D,” Shelly said, pulling her seat up to face me.She reached out and took my right hand by the thumb and forefinger.Shelly, Twill, and Dimitri were everything you could want in kids: nothing alike and deeply connected.“What did he say?”
