Chapter 7 - THE SISTER WHO WAS AFRAID OF BEING REPLACED
“Vivian knew where you were?”
Robert sounded as though he'd been struck.
I nodded.
“Naomi wrote to the agency three times. Vivian answered the last one herself.”
Catherine lifted the cardigan from the table.
Her fingers followed the little scarlet cross.
“I spent every birthday wondering whether Sophia was alive,” she whispered.
Then she looked at Robert.
“Your sister knew.”
For several minutes, Robert said nothing.
Finally, he stood.
“I'm going to see Vivian.”
“No,” I said.
He turned.
“She'll deny it. She'll explain it away. And you'll believe her because she's family.”
Robert winced.
I wasn't finished.
“You need to stop letting the loudest person decide what's true.”
He slowly sat down again.
“All right,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”
It was the first time he'd asked.
I placed Naomi's letters beside the company records.
“Find out who had access to the foundation's correspondence. Find out what happened to the original search reports. And don't tell Vivian what we know until we're ready.”
Robert nodded.
This time, he listened.
That evening, I returned to my apartment and found Chloe sitting on the steps outside.
Her right wrist was wrapped in a brace.
She stood when she saw me.
“I wasn't sure you'd come home.”
I stopped several feet away.
“What do you want?”
She looked exhausted.
Without the expensive makeup and carefully styled hair, she seemed younger.
Almost frightened.
“I saw Dad's statement.”
“Good.”
“He showed me the video.”
“And?”
Chloe swallowed.
“I know what it looks like.”
I laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
“Chloe, the camera shows you sitting down on the staircase before you started screaming.”
She stared at the sidewalk.
“I didn't think you'd be hurt.”
“You told everyone I tried to kill you.”
Her eyes filled.
“I thought if you stayed, there wouldn't be room for me anymore.”
I said nothing.
Chloe twisted the strap of her purse.
“When you arrived, Mom started talking about redecorating the nursery. Dad showed everyone your childhood pictures. Aunt Vivian said the whole family was finally complete.”
“That's what you were afraid of?”
“No.”
She looked up.
“Vivian said something else.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“She told me I should remember why I was adopted.”
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
Chloe's voice dropped.
“She said I came into this family because they needed someone after you disappeared. And now that you were back, everything would have to be reconsidered.”
For the first time, I saw something beyond Chloe's cruelty.
She had spent her life hearing that she had saved her parents from grief.
Then I arrived.
And someone she trusted made her believe her place could disappear overnight.
“That doesn't excuse what you did,” I said.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She wiped her cheeks.
“I wanted them to choose me.”
I thought about that.
Then I asked the question that had been troubling me since the motel.
“Why did you take Eleanor's envelope?”
Chloe's face changed.
“I found it when Aunt Vivian asked me to help prepare the old keepsakes for the foundation anniversary exhibition.”
“When?”
“Four days before the staircase.”
“You read it?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew someone had found me years ago?”
“I knew Vivian had kept a letter. I didn't understand what it meant.”
“Then why hide it?”
Chloe began crying.
“Because I showed it to Vivian.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did she say?”
“She told me you were going to bring trouble into the family. That everybody would start asking questions. And that once Dad knew the truth, he would never look at us the same way again.”
I studied her face.
Chloe wasn't confessing everything.
But she was finally telling me something useful.
“There's more,” I said.
She nodded.
“I saw a photograph in Vivian's office.”
“What photograph?”
“Your adoptive mother.”
My breath caught.
“Naomi?”
Chloe looked down.
“She was standing outside a church with some other people. Vivian was beside her.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“Where was the picture taken?”
Chloe hesitated.
Then she reached into her purse and showed me a photograph she'd taken of it on her phone.
I recognized the church immediately.
St. Matthew's.
The place where we'd held Naomi's funeral two years earlier.
I recognized the flowers.
The black ribbons.
The little brass thimble pinned to the photograph beside her coffin.
And there, standing near the back of the church, was Vivian Sterling.
Two years before my DNA results.
Two years before my parents found me.
May you like
My father's sister had attended my adoptive mother's funeral.
And she had never told anyone.
