Chương 4
Mara stood.
“So she planned it.”
“No,” Louise said quickly. “I don’t think she planned what happened tonight.”
“She came toward me and tore off my shawl.”
“I mean she may not have planned to confront you publicly.”
“That distinction helps no one,” Daniel said.
Mara walked to the window. A few floors below, cars moved through the intersection. A delivery cyclist stopped at the light, one foot on the pavement, checking his phone.
“Did Graham investigate me?” she asked.
“He may have begun. He handles sensitive matters for the family. Evelyn has used him for years.”
“What did he find?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask him.”
Daniel stood. “No. We do not ask the man who invaded Mara’s privacy to provide the results.”
“Then how do we learn what he found?” Mara said.
“We hire our own attorney and investigator.”
“I don’t want an investigator.”
“You want Evelyn’s version?”
“I want facts.”
“So do I.”
“Then stop deciding which facts I’m allowed to hear.”
He stared at her.
Louise said softly, “I should let you two speak.”
“No,” Mara said. “Ask Graham to preserve everything. Every search, message, document, and call.”
Daniel’s anger shifted toward surprise.
Mara continued, “Tell him not to delete anything. Tell Evelyn the same.”
Louise hesitated. “Do you intend to sue?”
“I don’t know what I intend.”
After the call ended, Daniel crossed to the window. He stood beside Mara without touching her.
“You sounded like a lawyer,” he said.
“I sounded like you.”
“That worries me.”
“It should.”
He looked at her profile. “What do you want to do?”
For the first time that evening, the question was not about what he wanted to prevent.
Mara watched the cyclist disappear through the intersection.
“I want to call my mother,” she said.
Helen answered on the fourth ring.
“Mara? Is everything all right? You never call this late unless your smoke detector is beeping.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Daniel sat across from her at the kitchen table. Between them lay her phone, a glass of water, and the engagement invitation they had brought home by accident in Daniel’s jacket pocket.
“Mom,” Mara said, “did you see anything online tonight?”
“No. Why?”
“There was an incident at the party.”
“What kind of incident?”
“No one was hurt.”
“That is what people say before describing something in which someone was hurt.”
Mara glanced at Daniel. He looked away.
“A woman pulled the shawl off my shoulders.”
Helen was silent.
“She saw my birthmark,” Mara continued. “She said her daughter disappeared when she was two and had the same mark.”
The silence lengthened.
“Mom?”
“I’m here.”
The answer sounded smaller than Helen’s usual voice.
“The woman’s name is Evelyn Harrow.”
A faint sound came through the phone. Not a word. Perhaps a breath catching.
Mara gripped the edge of the table.
“You know that name.”
Helen did not answer.
Daniel’s eyes lifted.
“Mom, do you know Evelyn Harrow?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because this is insane.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Helen’s breathing changed. Mara could hear her moving through the house, the soft scrape of slippers, a cabinet opening.
“I don’t want to discuss this over the phone.”
“Then I’m coming tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there is nothing to discuss.”
Mara’s fingers tightened.
“Where was I born?”
“In Reading.”
“What hospital?”
“St. Joseph’s.”
“Who delivered me?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“A simple one.”
“I don’t remember the doctor’s name. It was twenty-six years ago.”
“Do you have my birth records?”
“Somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Mara, enough.”
Daniel leaned forward, but Mara raised one finger.
Helen had rarely used that tone with her. Even as a child, Mara had been corrected through disappointment and practical consequences, not command. Enough belonged to emergencies. Enough had followed the time Peter nearly struck a boy who shoved Mara from a bicycle. Enough had ended arguments about medical bills after he became ill.
“Did you adopt me?” Mara asked.
“No.”
The word came quickly.
“Did Dad?”
“No.”
“Did someone give me to you?”
Helen made a broken sound.
Mara stopped breathing.
On the other end, a chair scraped.
“Mom.”
“I loved you,” Helen said.
Mara stared at the engagement invitation.
It had been printed on thick cream paper. Her name and Daniel’s appeared in gold lettering beneath the Harrow family crest.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I loved you every day.”
“Where did I come from?”
Helen began to cry. Not loudly. Mara heard her trying not to.
Daniel reached across the table and turned his palm upward. Mara did not take his hand.
“Mom, tell me.”
“I can’t do this tonight.”
“You have to.”
“I can’t.”
“You’ve had twenty-four years.”
Helen’s crying stopped.
Mara wished immediately that she could take the sentence back. Not because it was untrue, but because of the way it landed.
When Helen spoke again, her voice was flat.
“Come in the morning. Come alone.”
Daniel’s head turned sharply.
“Why alone?” Mara asked.
“Because this concerns our family.”
“Daniel is my family.”
“He is not part of this.”
“He was standing beside me when a stranger said I was her stolen child.”
“Mara.”
“I’m not coming alone.”
Helen hung up.
For several seconds, the kitchen was quiet except for the refrigerator motor.
Daniel withdrew his hand.
“She knows,” he said.
Mara stared at the dark phone screen.
“She knows something.”
“That was more than something.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Sound relieved that we have a direction.”
His face changed. “I am not relieved.”
“You look like you are.”
“I look like I want to do something.”
“That’s the problem.”
He pushed back from the table. “I’m not the problem tonight.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Mara stood so quickly that the chair legs scraped. “My mother just told me she loved me instead of telling me where I came from. I am allowed to be unreasonable.”
“Yes.”
“I am allowed to say things badly.”
“Yes.”
May you like
“Stop agreeing with me.”
Daniel looked exhausted. “What would you prefer?”
