Chapter 5: The Name She Never Spoke
I set my mug down carefully.
"What do you mean it wasn't voluntary?"
Raven turned her hands over on the table, as though she was deciding how much weight to put on each word.
"Your mother was eighteen.
Her parents told her she had no choice — that part she wrote in the document.
But what she didn't write down was who arranged the adoption."
"Her parents arranged it."
"Her father arranged it.
And the man he arranged it with was his own brother.
Your great-uncle.
A man named Gerald."
I didn't recognize the name.
"I never heard of a Gerald."
"Your mother never spoke of him.
Not to anyone, as far as I know.
She told me about him only a few weeks before she passed, and even then it took her a long time to say his name out loud." Raven's voice stayed steady, but her jaw was tight.
"Gerald handled the paperwork.
He found the adoptive family.
He made sure it was done quickly and quietly.
And then he charged your grandfather for the service."
Something cold settled in my stomach.
"He charged his own brother."
"He charged his own brother to take away his own grandnephew." Raven nodded.
"Your mother found out years later — she came across a receipt in her father's papers after he died.
A payment.
Dated six weeks after Thomas was born.
Made out to Gerald."
"He was paid to arrange the adoption."
"He was paid to make the problem disappear." Raven said it plainly.
"Your mother never confronted him.
By the time she found the receipt, Gerald was elderly and her parents were both gone.
She told herself it was over.
That there was no point." She paused.
"But when Thomas found her — when she realized he had spent his whole life not knowing where he came from — she stopped believing it was over."
I stood up without meaning to.
Walked to the kitchen window.
The garden outside was the same as it always was — the same roses, the same small herb bed she tended every morning.
It looked completely ordinary.
It looked like nothing had changed.
"Is Gerald still alive?" I asked.
"He's eighty-one.
He lives about forty minutes from here." Raven said it carefully.
"Your mother didn't tell me what she wanted you to do with that information.
She just said she wanted you to have it.
She said you were always better at deciding what was right than she was."
I turned back from the window.
"She wanted me to decide."
"I think so.
Yes."
I sat back down.
Picked up the envelope with my name on it.
This time I opened it.
The letter inside was one page.
Short.
Her handwriting was shakier than in the document — this one had been written later, closer to the end.
*My darling,* it began.
*By now Raven has told you about Gerald.
I want you to know that I am not asking you to do anything.
I am only asking you not to let Thomas spend the rest of his life thinking he was simply given away.
He deserves to know the full truth.
Whatever you decide to do with it is yours to decide.
You were always the brave one.
I was always the one who waited too long.
Don't be like me.
— Mom.*
I folded the letter and held it in both hands.
"Thomas doesn't know about Gerald?" I asked.
"Not yet.
Your mother wanted you to be the one to tell him.
If you chose to."
I looked at the letter.
At the roses through the window.
At Raven sitting across from me, patient and still.
"I need Thomas's number," I said.
Raven reached into her pocket again and slid a piece of paper across the table.
"He's expecting you might call," she said.
"He just didn't know when."
I picked up the paper.
A Portland area code.
A name written above the number in Raven's handwriting: *Thomas Calloway.*
Calloway.
Not Mom's maiden name.
Not my name.
The name of the family that had raised him.
May you like
I looked at it for a long moment.
Then I picked up my phone.
