"She clutched a copy of my book to her chest and hesitated before stepping up to the table where I was signing copies of my memoir at the Literature House in Oslo. She was the last person in line, and the bookstore section of this iconic literary venue in my native Norway was mostly empty now, as friends and folks attending my book launch had moved on to a nearby bar."
""I'm your sister..." she continued, but then quickly added, "I mean, I'm your half sister!" She continued, breathless, "Your father is also my father. I was born in 1963, and at first, he denied paternity, but then it was settled in court. I have it in writing." Then she apologized repeatedly for shocking me while at the same time I heard someone exclaim, "Oh, my God!! Oh. My. God... Wow. Just Wow!" and that someone was of course me."
At a book launch in Oslo, a bleary-eyed woman in a white linen tunic approached while I was signing copies. She clutched a copy of my book and introduced herself as Heidi. She told me she was my half sister and that our father had also fathered her, born in 1963; paternity had been denied initially but later settled in court and documented. She grew up without a father figure, raised by grandparents in Molde, due to stigma about being born out of wedlock in the 1960s. I hugged her, reassured her, and felt my life change.
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