What was I looking for? Some way of identifying my first cousin A.T. I was crystal clear when it came to one piece of logic. Later, when I obsessively tell the details of this day dozens upon dozens of times—the nature of trauma is that you have no recollection of it as a story—people will look at me blankly when I get to this part. I’ll have to break down this simple line of reasoning, one every family knows and takes for granted. If it was true, if A.T. was indeed my first cousin, then an uncle of his—either his father’s brother or his mother’s brother—would be my biological father.
