My father.
And according to Rose, the man who had tried to erase me.
I felt sick.
“You knew?”
“Not when I married him.”
“But later?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After his death.”
Rose shouted, “Liar!”
Margaret flinched.
“You knew before!”
Evelyn stepped between them.
“Mom, tell the truth.”
Margaret looked twenty years older.
“I suspected.”
“Suspected what?”
“That Harold had been involved
with Rose.”
“Involved?”
“He assaulted her.”
My stomach turned.
Rose covered her face.
And suddenly I understood why no one had ever used the word affair.
There had not been one.
Margaret kept speaking.
“Harold was twenty-eight.
Rose was sixteen.”
My entire body went cold.
“That’s impossible.
She was his sister.”
“Stepsister,” Margaret said.
I looked at Rose.
She nodded.
“My mother married his father.”
I couldn’t process it.
Every revelation opened another door behind it.
Harold had abused Rose.
Rose became pregnant.
Harold, terrified of exposure, tried to make the child disappear.Browse Art Prints
Me.
The hospital fire.
The false identity.
Helen taking me.
Margaret hiring me decades later.
My life rearranged itself in front of me like shattered glass.
“Why did you hire me?”
I asked.
Margaret’s voice broke.
“Because after Harold died, I found his papers.”
“What papers?”
“A private investigator’s reports.”
My blood ran cold.
“He had been
searching for you.”
“Why?”
“I thought he wanted to make amends.”Browse Art Prints
Rose laughed from across the room.
Margaret looked at her.
