When I eventually hung up the phone, it was with some trepidation. I was a little nervous about the two sides of my life—boundary witch and family member—intersecting in any way. Then again, Grace didn’t know anything about the Old World, and Sashi was doing her damnedest to keep it that way.
At the same time, I couldn’t believe Dani was nearly a teenager. I could swear I’d been changing her diapers a week ago. I felt a stab of nostalgia. Soon she’d be too busy to come over here and play with the herd, and too grown-up for our Pixar movie nights with the other kids.
Feeling old and tired, I considered just staying in bed. But I could never fall back asleep after one of those dreams, not without Quinn, anyway. So I let the animals out and took a quick shower, put salve on my burn, and dressed in jeans and an old purple shirt that used to be my sister’s. Sam had given it to me while she was pregnant with Charlie, complaining that it was too tight around the middle and it would never look good on her flabby mom belly again. Smiling a little at the memory, I padded into the kitchen to check my calendar. I was pretty sure I had to work at the Depot at one, but since becoming semi-nocturnal, I’d gotten the days mixed up before.
The doorbell rang before I made it to the living room. I jumped a little, and all around me dogs began barking hysterically, working extra hard to make up for the fact that they hadn’t heard anyone approach. Generally the only person who could surprise the dogs was Quinn, because he was vampire-sneaky. “Dropped the ball, guys,” I muttered.
The animals swarmed the front door, and I had to wedge myself between them to get to the little glass window. When I peeked through, I saw an unassuming Caucasian man with his hands stuffed in his pockets. When he saw me, he held up his hands slightly in an unconscious nonthreatening gesture. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I automatically thought salesman.
He said something, but I couldn’t make it out over the barking. I cracked the door, jamming my body in it to keep the dogs inside, and opened my mouth to get rid of him. He overrode me.
“I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this,” he called over the noise, “but I didn’t have a number for you. My name is Emil Jasper, and I . . . well. I’m your biological father.”
Chapter 7
“You’re . . . what do . . .” I sputtered. I was having a hard time rearranging my entire worldview in a few seconds.
Sam and I had never celebrated an adoption day the way some families did, and most of the time I barely remembered that we weren’t biologically Luthers. But I knew the story. My birth mother had walked into a Denver hospital in the middle of a terrible rainstorm, dripping wet and well into labor. She wouldn’t give her name or any background information, but she spoke with an accent, and the hospital’s assumption was that she was likely an undocumented immigrant.
The doctors would have questioned her further after we were born, but then I went into distress—something about fluid in my lungs choking me. While they were busy saving me, our mother was suddenly bleeding out. And then it was over. I’d wondered who my birth father was, of course, but I’d never actually expected to find out.
Unable to form any actual sentences, I snapped my mouth shut and looked him over more carefully, tuning out the barking. Jasper was just over six feet tall, with dark blond hair silvering to gray and a neat goatee. He carried a little extra weight around his middle, but it was mostly disguised by his simple, forgettable clothing: khaki pants and a plain charcoal button-down, with new-looking casual oxfords. The only remarkable thing about his clothes was the awkward way they fit. His shirt bunched a little just below the collar, and his pants hung low, as though the pockets were filled with change. I’d had a lot of practice looking for weapons under clothing, but this didn’t seem like guns or knives, just . . . weighed down.
At first glance he had appeared to be about forty, but now I saw the signs of age: sag under his chin, lines around his mouth, and the small potbelly despite his wiry forearms. I put him just north of fifty. His eyes were cornflower blue, exactly like mine. And Sam’s, and Charlie’s.
That itself wasn’t proof of paternity or anything, but the more I looked, the more similarities I spotted. Our noses. Our thick eyelashes. I glanced at his hands. Even his fingernails were shaped like mine.
“Why are you here?” I blurted, and immediately felt like a jerk.
But he didn’t seem offended, just nervous. His fingers kneaded together at his waist, as though he were holding an imaginary hat. “I was hoping to meet you. Speak to you. Explain why . . .”
He trailed off, looking so mortified that I took pity on him. “Are you okay with animals, Mr. Jasper?” I asked. “Dogs and cats?”
“Yes, of course. And please call me Emil.” For the first time, I noticed his unusual accent. His vowels were long—like someone from Canada or the Midwest—but there was also an odd lilt I couldn’t place.
“Okay, well. Come in.”
I ushered him ahead, catching a familiar scent. Cigar smoke. I’d known a few guys who smoked them on deployment. As soon as Jasper—Emil—was through the door, Chip and Cody were falling all over each other to lick his face. Emil dodged gamely, hunching down a little so he could scratch their backs while they were on the floor. We went into the living room, where I motioned him toward an easy chair, heading for the opposite couch. I couldn’t keep myself from perching on the very edge, as though my body still expected him to go for a weapon. Emil turned to greet my gray cat Gus-Gus, who literally stepped onto his back by way of greeting. “Hello,” he murmured, scratching Gus-Gus under the chin. You can tell a lot about a person by how they are with animals, I had learned, and Emil certainly seemed to be passing that particular test.