Chapter 4: What My Mother Never Told Me
I called my mother from the hospital hallway while Daniel stayed with Carol and our daughter.
My hands were shaking so badly I had to press the phone against the wall to hold it steady.
She picked up on the second ring.
"Sweetheart, how are you feeling?
How's the baby?"
"Mom." I couldn't find a way into it.
"Mom, I need to ask you something and I need you to tell me the truth."
A pause.
Just a half-second.
But I felt it.
"Of course," she said.
"What's wrong?"
"Did you know a man named Robert Hale?"
The silence this time was longer.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"Mom."
"Lily." Her voice had changed.
Lower.
Careful.
"Where did you hear that name?"
"His wife is sitting in my hospital room right now." I pressed my back against the wall.
"She has a photograph.
She has a piece of paper with your name on it.
And my daughter has a birthmark that apparently runs in his family." I stopped.
"So I'm going to ask you one more time.
Did you know Robert Hale?"
I heard her exhale.
Long and slow.
"Yes," she said.
"I knew him."
The floor felt uncertain under my feet.
"How?"
"It was a long time ago, Lily.
Before your father.
Before everything."
"How long?"
"1992.
1993.
It wasn't — it was complicated."
"Mom.
Was he—" I couldn't finish it.
"No." Her voice came fast and hard.
"No.
He was not your father.
Your father is your father.
I need you to hear that clearly."
"Then why does my daughter have his family's birthmark?"
Another silence.
This one felt different.
Heavier.
"Mom.
Do I have a sibling I don't know about?"
She didn't answer.
"Mom."
"You have a half-brother," she said.
Very quietly.
"His name is Thomas.
He's thirty-two years old.
I gave him up when he was three days old.
His father was Robert."
I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the floor of the hospital corridor.
A nurse walked past and glanced at me.
I didn't move.
"You gave up a child," I said.
"I was twenty-three years old and alone and Robert had already gone back to his wife.
I couldn't—" Her voice broke.
"I couldn't do it alone, Lily.
I thought I was doing the right thing."
"Does Thomas know who his father is?"
"I don't know.
I signed the papers and I never — I never looked back.
I couldn't."
"Does Dad know?"
The pause told me everything before she spoke.
"He found out four years ago," she said.
"We almost didn't survive it.
We chose not to tell you because we didn't want to—"
"You didn't want to tell me." I looked at the ceiling.
"You and Dad have known for four years that I have a half-brother out there somewhere.
A half-brother who is the son of my husband's father."
"Lily, we didn't know about Daniel's father.
We didn't know there was any connection."
"But now there is." I pressed my hand flat against the floor.
Cold linoleum.
Solid.
Real.
"Because my daughter has his birthmark.
Which means Thomas must be her biological—"
I stopped.
The thought finished itself without my permission.
If Thomas was my half-brother, and Thomas had Robert's mark, and my daughter had Robert's mark—
"Lily." My mother's voice was frightened now.
"Lily, what are you saying?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"I don't know what I'm saying."
But I did know.
Some part of me already knew.
I stood up from the floor.
I looked through the small window in the hospital room door.
Daniel was holding our daughter.
Carol was watching him.
Neither of them was speaking.
I pushed the door open.
"Carol," I said.
"I need you to tell me everything you know about Patricia's son."
Carol looked up.
Her face told me she had been waiting for exactly this question.
"His name is Thomas," she said.
May you like
Daniel's head came up slowly.
"And six months ago," Carol continued, "he contacted me."
