Chapter 4 - THE CEDAR CHEST
“My father had another child?”
Nicholas stood perfectly still.
Margaret nodded.
Daniel looked as though he had expected the answer, but hearing it still hurt.
“Was there an affair?” Nicholas asked.
Margaret tightened her grip on her rosary.
“Yes. But that wasn't the worst part.”
I glanced at the photograph on the desk.
My grandmother had been standing beside Margaret, protecting something nobody wanted discussed.
“What does this have to do with my family?” I asked.
Margaret looked at me.
“I hoped you would never have to find out.”
The words frightened me more than any accusation Vanessa had made.
Nicholas called Marco.
“Arrange a car. Emily and I are going to her mother's apartment.”
Daniel immediately stood.
“I'm coming.”
“No.”
“Nicholas—”
“You've been keeping secrets for weeks. Stay here with Mom.”
Daniel looked wounded.
But he nodded.
Before we left, Margaret caught my hand.
“The blue ribbon,” she whispered. “Look for a blue ribbon.”
Outside, the November air was bitterly cold.
Nicholas held the car door while I climbed inside.
It was such an ordinary courtesy that I almost forgot who he was.
Then he said, “Emily, Vanessa threatened your mother's nursing-home care tonight.”
I stared at my hands.
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I need this job.”
He sat beside me.
“My mother has trusted you for thirteen months. You should never have been put in that position.”
I wanted to believe him.
But wealthy men often made promises they could forget by breakfast.
Instead, I said, “My mother has early-stage Parkinson's. Her assisted nursing care costs more than I make without overtime.”
Nicholas looked out the window.
“Vanessa knew that?”
“Yes.”
His jaw tightened.
“Then she knew exactly what she was doing.”
Twenty-five minutes later, we entered my mother's small apartment.
It smelled faintly of lemon polish.
The cedar chest sat beneath the bedroom window.
I inserted Margaret's brass key.
The lock opened immediately.
Inside were folded quilts, Grandma's old Bible, Christmas cards, and a pale-blue baby blanket.
Nicholas lifted the blanket.
A tiny letter M had been stitched into one corner.
“M?” he murmured.
I searched beneath the quilts.
There was a leather folder tied with blue ribbon.
Inside lay hospital paperwork, handwritten notes, and a photograph.
The photograph showed my grandmother holding a newborn.
Beside her stood Margaret Vescari.
Margaret was crying.
On the back, Grandma had written:
October 14. The child must never be sent back.
My stomach twisted.
Nicholas examined the date.
“Eighteen years ago.”
I found another document.
It was a birth certificate worksheet, incomplete and never filed.
The mother's name had been crossed out.
The father's name was clearly written.
ANTHONY VESCARI.
Nicholas's father.
Below that lay a receipt from a children's residential program called St. Agnes Family Services.
Nicholas frowned.
“My father donated money to St. Agnes.”
I looked at the paperwork.
“Was the baby sent there?”
“Maybe.”
A folded note slipped from the folder.
It was written in my grandmother's careful handwriting.
Margaret was not confused. She discovered the truth, and they tried to make her disappear behind a diagnosis.
Below that was one additional sentence.
The child is not safe until the original agreement is destroyed.
Nicholas read it twice.
“What agreement?”
I searched the folder.
Nothing.
Then I noticed a small envelope tucked into the Bible.
Inside was a photograph of my mother, much younger, standing beside a man in a dark overcoat.
My breath caught.
The man was Anthony Vescari.
Nicholas stared.
“That's my father.”
I knew.
But what frightened me was the handwriting beneath the picture.
Carolyn Carter, February 2008.
Carolyn was my mother.
I turned the photograph over.
There were four words written across the back.
SHE REFUSED HIS OFFER.
Nicholas looked at me.
“Emily, how old were you when this picture was taken?”
“Nine.”
He opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because beneath the photograph was a second hospital document.
A pregnancy intake form.
Patient: Carolyn Carter.
The date was eight months before the baby in Grandma Eleanor's photograph was born.
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And beside the father's name was a handwritten instruction:
IDENTITY MUST REMAIN CONFIDENTIAL — A.V.
