Not gradually.
Immediately.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Her hands shook.
“Oh, my baby.”
Every hair on my arms rose.Style Your Hair
I sat across from her.
“You’re Rose?”
She nodded.
“You’re my mother?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
I wanted to feel something enormous.
Love.
Recognition.
Anger.
Instead, I felt numb.
“Why did you leave
me?”
Rose looked toward the window.
“Because your father was going to kill you.”
There it was again.
That sentence.
“Who was my father?”
Rose shut her eyes.
“A man named Thomas Vale.”
I had never heard the name.
“He owned half the textile factories in this county back then,” she continued.
“Married.
Powerful.
My brother Harold worked for him.”
I thought of Margaret’s husband.
“He knew?”
“Harold found out I was pregnant.”
Rose’s voice cracked.
“He begged me to leave town.
Thomas didn’t want the scandal.”
“What did he do?”
“He told me the baby would never be born.”
My stomach twisted.
Rose said Thomas had threatened her.
Followed her.
Paid someone at the hospital to report when she went into labor.
Harold and Helen—my mother—had known.
The night of the fire, Rose believed someone had started it deliberately.Go Stargazing
“In the confusion, Helen took you.”
“Why Helen?”
“Because she
had already lost a baby.”
My eyes widened.
Rose nodded.
“She had given birth to a little girl six months earlier.
Stillborn.”
I looked at Evelyn.
She hadn’t known that part.
“Helen wanted a child,” Rose whispered.
“And I wanted mine alive.”
“So you gave me to her?”
“For one night.”
My throat tightened.Study Biology
“One night?”
“I was supposed to come back.”
“What happened?”
Rose’s eyes filled.
“Thomas found me.”
The room went still.
“He had me committed.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“He had connections.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
