Not gradually.
Immediately.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Her hands shook.
“Oh, my baby.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
I sat across from her.
“You’re Rose?”
She nodded.
“You’re my mother?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
I wanted to feel something enormous.
Love.
Recognition.
Anger.
Instead, I felt numb.
“Why did you leave
me?”
Rose looked toward the window.
“Because your father was going to kill you.”
There it was again.
That sentence.
“Who was my father?”
Rose shut her eyes.
“A man named Thomas Vale.”
I had never heard the name.
“He owned half the textile factories in this county back then,” she continued.
“Married.
Powerful.
My brother Harold worked for him.”
I thought of Margaret’s husband.
“He knew?”
“Harold found out I was pregnant.”
Rose’s voice cracked.
“He begged me to leave town.
Thomas didn’t want the scandal.”
“What did he do?”
