Never told me she was family.”
“There are things you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them.”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because there is still one person alive who knows what happened the night you were born.”
My skin prickled.
“Who?”
She looked at me.
“Your biological mother.”
Rose Whitaker was alive.
That
fact shattered every assumption I had held about myself.
She lived under another name in a long-term care facility outside Richmond.
Margaret had found her only four years earlier.
Rose had spent decades drifting between shelters, psychiatric hospitals, and temporary housing.
But according to Evelyn, she had recently become lucid enough to talk about the past.
I called Margaret.
She answered immediately.
“Carly.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Silence.
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Before you ever cleaned my house.”
The betrayal hit harder hearing it from her.
