“No.”
“The money?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Another pause.
“Your mother.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
My mother, Helen, had been dead for nineteen
years.
I was twenty-five when she died of pancreatic cancer.
Margaret had never met her.
At least I thought she hadn’t.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.”
Evelyn exhaled.
“Can you meet me tomorrow?”
She named a café near the courthouse.
Then she said something that kept me awake all night.
“Carly, my mother has wanted to tell you the truth for years.
She was afraid that once she did, you would never walk into her house again.”
Evelyn was already seated when I arrived.
She looked tired.
Not polished like the woman I remembered.
Just tired.
There was a large brown envelope beside her coffee.
I sat down.
“What truth?”
She folded her hands.
“My mother knew your mother.”
I stared.
