But Evelyn wasn’t smiling.
“She found an unsigned note inside your bassinet after the fire.”
“What did it say?”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then handed me a photocopy.
The handwriting was jagged.
Do not give the child to the man asking for her.
Her name must disappear
tonight.
Cold spread through my body.
“Who was the man?”
“My mother never knew.”
“Did Helen?”
“We think so.”
“Who was my biological mother?”
Evelyn looked back through the café window.
Then at me.
“Her name was Rose.”
That name meant nothing.
Until Evelyn added the last name.
“Rose Whitaker.”
I stopped breathing.
Whitaker.
I stared at her.
Evelyn’s face crumpled.
“My father had a younger sister.”
Margaret’s sister-in-law?
No.
I shook my head.
“Wait.”
Evelyn stepped closer.
“Rose was my father Harold’s sister.”
The world seemed to disappear beneath my feet.
If Rose was Harold Whitaker’s sister…
