For several seconds, nobody moved.
Anna stood beside my kitchen table with Carol’s final letter in her hand, while Rebecca stared at her as though one more impossible detail might finally break whatever remained of the night.
“You still have the photograph?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
“In Pittsburgh?”
Anna nodded.
Rebecca looked toward the windows. Morning sunlight had begun touching the tops of the trees beyond the backyard.
“You drove four hours to get here.”
“Yes.”
“And the picture is four hours away.”
“Yes.”
My daughter pressed both palms against the table.
“What exactly does it show?”
Anna closed her eyes.
“A little girl standing beside Carol.”
“How old?”
“Maybe four. Maybe five.”
“And you thought she was me?”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
Rebecca pointed toward herself.
“But I was six weeks old when Grandma gave it to you.”
“Yes.”
“So either someone had a time machine, or that girl wasn't me.”
“I know.”
“Did she look like me?”
Anna hesitated.
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
“How much?”
“Enough that Ruth knew I would notice.”
A silence followed.
That sentence mattered.
My mother had not simply handed Anna a random photograph.
She had wanted a reaction.
“What did she say when she gave it to you?” I asked.
Anna looked toward me.
“She told me I needed to understand that some children belonged in certain families.”
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
“That looking backward would only hurt everyone.”
“Did she identify the girl?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She said, ‘You know who she is.’”
Rebecca gave a disbelieving laugh.
“That’s cruel.”
Anna nodded.
“It was meant to be.”
I tried reconstructing my mother at that time.
Rebecca six weeks old.
Carol and I barely sleeping.
Anna recovering from childbirth and loss.
Ruth moving between all our lives as though she alone understood the correct arrangement.
Why give Anna a photograph of another child?
What could she gain?
“Did you show it to your mother?” I asked.
“Louise?”
“Yes.”
Anna’s eyes shifted.
“That’s when things became stranger.”
Rebecca pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
Anna did.
I sat across from her.
Rebecca remained standing.
“My mother saw the photograph and nearly fainted.”
A cold sensation moved across my shoulders.
“She recognized the girl?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
Rebecca stared.
“Seriously?”
“She started crying. Then she took the photograph from me.”
“You let her keep it?”
“Only overnight.”
“What happened?”
“She gave it back the next morning and told me never to show it to anyone.”
“Why?”
“She said if Ruth knew I still had it, Ruth might come back.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Grandma was one woman, not the mafia.”
“You didn't know Ruth at forty-five.”
“I knew her at seventy.”
“So did I,” I said quietly. “She softened.”
Rebecca gave me a look.
“Apparently not enough.”
Fair.
Anna folded Carol’s letter carefully.
“For years, I assumed the girl must have been some relative of Walter’s.”
“Was she?”
“I don't know.”
“Did you ever ask Louise again?”
“Many times.”
“And?”
“She refused.”
“Until she died?”
Anna looked down.
“Almost.”
Rebecca noticed.
“Almost?”
“About a week before she died, she tried to tell me.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did she say?”
“She said Ruth had always been terrified of resemblance.”
I frowned.
“Resemblance?”
“That was the word.”
“Between who?”
“She became confused before she could explain.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“Did she mention the girl?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Anna swallowed.
“She said the girl was ‘the first one.’”
Nobody spoke.
The first one.
The phrase entered the room like another person.
“The first what?” Rebecca asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Adoption?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grandchild?”
“I don't know.”
Rebecca paced toward the sink.
“So Grandma gives you a picture of a child who looks like me, your mother recognizes her, calls her ‘the first one,’ and everyone expects you to act normal?”
“That describes most of my twenties.”
Despite everything, Rebecca almost smiled.
Then she stopped.
“Do you have a copy on your phone?”
“No.”
“You never photographed it?”
“I barely look at it.”
“Why keep it?”
Anna answered without hesitation.
“Because Ruth wanted me frightened enough to destroy it.”
Rebecca considered that.
“Good reason.”
I looked toward Carol’s hidden adoption file.
Maybe the answer was already somewhere in the documents.
We searched again.
Every photograph.
Every receipt.
Every handwritten note.
Nothing showed an older girl.
Then I remembered the boxes at my mother’s house.
Not the attic box I had already opened.
There were albums downstairs.
Old family photographs.
My mother had labeled nearly every picture.
Maybe this child appeared somewhere else.
“I’m going to Ruth’s house,” I said.
Rebecca looked at the clock.
“You haven't slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“I'm younger.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
Anna stood.
“I'll come.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“Why not?”
“Because Rebecca needs sleep.”
“I wasn't talking about Rebecca.”
“I know.”
Anna looked at me.
There it was again.
The old habit of arguing as though four decades had never happened.
Rebecca watched both of us.
“Oh, this is going to be exhausting.”
Anna and I looked toward her.
“What?” I asked.
“You two.”
“There is no ‘you two.’”
Rebecca raised one eyebrow.
Anna suddenly became interested in the table.
My daughter shook her head.
“Sure.”
I took my keys.
Rebecca grabbed hers.
“What are you doing?”
“Coming.”
“You just told me I need sleep.”
“I changed my mind.”
Anna reached for her coat.
“So did I.”
Within twenty minutes, the three of us were driving to the house where I grew up.
The place looked smaller than I remembered from childhood.
They always do.
My mother’s flowerbeds had become weeds.
Paint peeled from one porch railing.
Inside, the air carried that closed-house smell of dust and wood.
Rebecca stopped in the entryway.
“I haven't been here since Grandma died.”
“Neither have I much.”
Anna stood just behind us.
She looked pale.
“This is the house?”
“Yes.”
“Where Ruth lived?”
“Forty-eight years.”
Anna looked toward the staircase.
“I came here once.”
I turned.
“What?”
“After you left.”
“You never told me.”
“I came looking for your mother.”
Rebecca stared at her.
“That sounds dangerous in hindsight.”
“It was stupid.”
“What happened?”
“Ruth wasn't home.”
“Who was?”
“Thomas.”
My father.
I stared at Anna.
“You met Dad?”
“Only briefly.”
“When?”
“After I learned I was pregnant. Before I went to your apartment.”
My mind scrambled to rearrange the timeline.
“What did you tell him?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Why?”
“Because he looked terrified the moment I said my surname.”
Of course.
Mercer.
He knew Louise.
Maybe he understood immediately.
“Did he ask about your mother?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“That Louise was fine.”
“What did he say?”
Anna looked toward the floor.
“He told me I should leave.”
My chest tightened.
“My father told you to leave?”
“He said Ruth would be back soon and it would be better if she didn’t see me.”
That sounded like fear, not hostility.
“Did he know you were pregnant?”
“I was barely showing.”
“So maybe not.”
“I don't think he did.”
Rebecca looked between us.
“Did he mention Daniel?”
“No.”
I felt another loss.
My father had stood within feet of Anna, the daughter of Louise, carrying my child, and none of us understood enough to change what happened next.
We entered the living room.
Family albums filled two lower shelves beside the fireplace.
My mother organized them by decade.
I pulled out the albums from the late seventies and early eighties.
Rebecca sat on the floor.
Anna beside her.
We began turning pages.
Christmas.
Birthdays.
Vacations.
My father holding fish beside a lake.
My mother standing stiffly at church picnics.
Me graduating college.
Nothing.
Then Rebecca stopped.
“Dad.”
Her finger rested on a photograph from 1980.
A church fundraiser.
I stood beside my father.
My mother stood several people away.
In the background was a young girl.
Maybe four.
Dark hair.
Green eyes.
My breath caught.
Anna leaned closer.
“That’s her.”
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca stared at the girl.
“She does look like me.”
Not identical.
But enough.
The eyes.
The cheeks.
Something around the mouth.
I removed the photograph carefully.
Nothing was written on the back except the date.
September 1980.
Rebecca had not been born for more than four years.
“Who is she?” Rebecca asked.
I looked at the people around her.
Church members.
Neighbors.
One woman I recognized.
Mrs. Harwell.
She had run the church nursery for decades.
Still alive, as far as I knew.
Maybe ninety.
“Someone might know.”
Rebecca touched another photograph on the same page.
“Wait.”
Different event.
Christmas pageant.
Same girl.
This time Carol was in the picture.
My stomach dropped.
Carol stood beside a group of children.
She would have been twenty-one.
Years before she met me.
The girl stood directly in front of her.
Anna whispered, “Carol knew her.”
Rebecca stared.
“Mom knew this child before she knew Dad.”
“Yes.”
The impossibility shifted.
This was no longer only Ruth’s secret.
Carol was involved years before Anna became pregnant.
Rebecca turned another page.
There.
The girl again.
Birthday party.
Five candles on a cake.
The child sat beside Ruth.
My mother’s hand rested on her shoulder.
On the back, my mother had written:
Emily — five today.
A name.
Finally.
“Emily,” Rebecca whispered.
Anna turned pale.
“What?”
“You know it?”
Anna looked frightened.
“My mother said that name once.”
“When?”
“The night she saw the photograph Ruth gave me.”
Rebecca leaned closer.
“What did she say?”
“She asked, ‘Where did Ruth get Emily?’”
My heart started pounding.
“So Louise knew her.”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
“I don't know.”
We searched the album for more.
Emily appeared repeatedly for almost two years.
Then vanished.
No funeral.
No explanation.
Just gone.
I pulled out the next album.
1982.
No Emily.
1983.
Nothing.
1984.
Nothing.
It was as though she stopped existing.
Rebecca stood.
“Could she have moved?”
“Maybe.”
“With who?”
I checked the photographs again.
Emily was almost always near my mother.
Sometimes Carol.
Never beside a man who looked like a father.
Never beside a woman who obviously looked like a mother.
Anna touched the image.
“She has Louise’s eyes.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Look.”
I had known Louise only casually decades earlier.
But memory supplied enough.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Rebecca asked, “Could Emily be related to you?”
Anna shook her head.
“I had no younger sister.”
“What about an older sister with a child?”
“No.”
I suddenly remembered something.
“Louise had been pregnant before Anna.”
Anna turned sharply.
“How do you know?”
“My father mentioned something once.”
“When?”
“Years ago. I didn’t understand it.”
“What did he say?”
I searched memory.
He and I had been repairing a fence.
Some story about high school.
Louise.
A baby.
I had assumed he meant Daniel.
But maybe not.
“He said Louise had ‘lost another one.’”
Anna went white.
“My mother had two pregnancies?”
“I don't know.”
“She never told me.”
Rebecca pointed to Emily.
“Could she be Louise’s daughter?”
“If she was born in 1975, Louise would have been—”
“Forty-nine,” Anna said.
“Possible.”
“But I lived with her.”
“You'd remember your mother being pregnant.”
“Exactly.”
Then Rebecca said, “Unless Louise wasn't the mother.”
We all looked at her.
“What?”
“Maybe ‘the first one’ doesn't mean Louise's first child.”
She pointed toward Carol.
“Maybe Mom's.”
The room went silent.
“No,” I said.
Anna looked at me.
“You don't know.”
“Carol told me she could never have children.”
“That’s different from never being pregnant.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“She told me she had surgery when she was nineteen.”
“Yes.”
“What surgery?”
I realized I had never asked for details.
She said there had been complications.
That pregnancy would be impossible afterward.
I assumed cysts.
Maybe infection.
Something medical.
“What if she was pregnant?” Rebecca whispered.
My stomach turned.
“At sixteen?”
“Mom would have been sixteen or seventeen when Emily was born.”
Anna looked at the photograph of Carol and Emily.
“They look alike.”
I stared.
Now that she said it, I saw it.
The chin.
The shape of the eyebrows.
Not Rebecca’s resemblance.
Carol’s.
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
I immediately resisted.
“We don't know anything.”
“No,” Rebecca said. “We don't.”
She turned another album page.
There was one final photograph.
Carol kneeling beside Emily.
Emily’s arms wrapped around her neck.
Someone had written on the border in blue ink.
Mama C.
Rebecca froze.
I took the picture.
The handwriting was not Ruth’s.
It looked like a child's.
Emily’s.
Anna whispered, “Carol had a daughter.”
My daughter sat down slowly.
“No.”
“We don't know that yet,” I said.
Rebecca stared at Carol’s younger face.
“Then who was she?”
Nobody answered.
My phone rang.
Elaine.
Marjorie’s daughter.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered.
“Walter?”
“Yes.”
“I found something else in Mom's journals.”
We all became still.
“What?”
“An entry from 1981.”
My grip tightened.
“Read it.”
Paper rustled.
Elaine spoke carefully.
June 6, 1981.
Ruth brought Carol again.
Carol asking about Emily.
Ruth says placement is permanent.
Carol insists she was promised visits.
I felt the floor disappear beneath me.
Rebecca whispered, “Placement.”
Elaine continued.
Carol begged for address.
Ruth refused.
Said girl needs to forget who her real mother is.
Rebecca sat completely motionless.
Anna closed her eyes.
I could barely speak.
“Elaine.”
“Yes?”
“Does the journal say who Emily’s mother was?”
There was a pause.
Then Elaine answered.
“Carol.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 14: Carol Had Lost a Daughter Before She Ever Met Me, and Ruth Used That Wound to Bind Her to Rebecca’s Adoption
Three Days Before Carol Died, She Asked Me to Find the Woman I Had Spent Forty Years Forgetting
Part 13 of 35
