Chapter 6: What She Should Have Said Years Ago
I stepped into the hallway again.
The same corridor, the same cold floor, the same distant sound of the nurses' station two doors down.
My mother answered before it finished ringing.
"What else?" I said.
No greeting.
No softening.
"Lily, please don't be angry."
"Tell me."
She exhaled.
"When I gave Thomas up, I used a private agency.
Not the state system.
A private agency that Robert paid for."
I waited.
"Robert arranged everything," she said.
"The adoption.
The family.
He chose them himself.
He wanted to make sure the baby went somewhere specific."
"Why would he care where the baby went if he was walking away?"
"Because he wasn't walking away entirely." Her voice was strained.
"Robert kept tabs on Thomas.
Quietly.
For years.
He set up a small trust.
Nothing enormous, but enough.
Thomas would have received it at thirty."
"Thomas is thirty-two," I said.
"Yes."
"So he's already received it."
"I don't know.
I don't know the details.
I only know what Robert told me in the last letter he sent me.
In 2008."
I pressed my fingers against my forehead.
"He was still writing to you in 2008."
"One letter.
One.
He was ill.
He wanted me to know that Thomas was provided for.
He said he owed me that much." A pause.
"Your father never knew about that letter.
I burned it."
"Mom."
"I know.
I know, Lily."
"What is it you're afraid of?" I asked.
"What is it you don't want me to find out from Thomas directly?"
A long silence.
"Robert told me in that letter that he had told Thomas the truth about his mother," she said.
"Not my name.
But that his biological mother was still alive.
Still in the States.
And that she had another child."
The hallway felt narrower.
"He told Thomas he had a sibling," I said.
"Yes."
"So Thomas has known, for years, that he has a half-sibling out there somewhere."
"Yes."
"And when Carol told him Daniel's name—"
"He may have started looking," my mother said.
"I don't know how much he found.
These DNA services, the genealogy sites, they connect things very quickly now.
If he searched your name—"
"He would have found me."
"Yes."
I turned and looked through the window in the door.
Carol had her phone to her ear.
Daniel was watching her.
"Mom, did Thomas know my name before today?"
"I don't know."
"Did he know I was pregnant?"
"I don't know, Lily.
I don't know what he knows.
That's what frightens me."
I thought about the letter.
The neat handwriting.
*I am not writing to cause any pain or disruption.* The London phone number.
The move to Chicago eight months ago.
Eight months ago I was three months pregnant.
"I have to go," I said.
"Lily—"
"I'll call you later, Mom."
I went back into the room.
Carol was just lowering her phone.
"I reached him," she said.
"He can come tomorrow if—"
"Did you tell him the baby had arrived?" I asked.
Carol blinked.
"Yes.
I mentioned it."
"What exactly did you say?"
"I said Daniel's wife had just had a baby girl." She looked uncertain now.
"Why?"
"What did he say when you told him?"
Carol was quiet for a moment.
"He said he already knew," she said slowly.
"He said he'd been hoping everything went well."
Daniel looked at me.
"He's been watching," I said.
"Somehow.
He already knew."
The room was very quiet.
Rose made another small sound.
Content.
Untroubled.
May you like
I walked to the bassinet and put my hand over hers.
"Nobody comes to this room tomorrow," I said, "until I know exactly who Thomas Brennan is."
