She named a café near the courthouse.
Then she said something that kept me awake all night.
“Carly, my mother has wanted to tell you the truth for years.
She was afraid that once she did, you would never walk into her house again.”
Evelyn was already seated when I arrived.
She looked tired.
Not polished like the woman I remembered.
Just tired.
There was a large brown envelope beside her coffee.Envelopes
I sat down.
“What truth?”
She folded her hands.
“My mother knew your mother.”
I stared.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They worked together.”
“My mother worked at St.
Anne’s.”
“So did mine.”
I knew Margaret had once been a nurse.
What I had not
known was that she and my mother had worked the same maternity floor for nearly six years.
Evelyn slid the brown envelope toward me.Envelopes
Inside were photographs.
The first showed two young nurses standing outside a hospital.
One was unmistakably my mother.
Helen.
Young.
Laughing.
Beside her stood Margaret Whitaker.
My hands shook.
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“Because there was more.”
I looked up.
Evelyn’s eyes were wet.
“In 1988, there was a fire in the old maternity wing.”
