Chapter 5 - Christmas Eve, 1996
Mom refused to discuss it over the phone.
That frightened me more than anything Lauren had said.
The next morning, Dad called.
“You need to leave this alone.”
James was standing beside me.
“I’m done leaving things alone.”
Dad sighed.
“This has nothing to do with Emma.”
“Lauren broke into our home and stole something from Emma’s nursery.”
“She’s emotionally unstable.”
“Then tell me why.”
Dad stayed silent.
I said, “What happened Christmas Eve, 1996?”
His breathing changed.
That was when I knew there really was a secret.
“Ask your mother.”
“She told me to ask you.”
Another lie.
Another attempt to avoid responsibility.
James took the phone.
“Tom, this situation has already crossed into police territory.”
His tone was calm.
“If information exists that explains Lauren’s behavior or indicates my family is in danger, withholding it helps no one.”
Dad finally cracked.
“Lauren isn’t your sister biologically.”
I stopped breathing.
James looked at me.
Dad kept talking.
“She’s your cousin.”
My knees weakened.
I sat down.
“My cousin?”
“My brother Michael was her father.”
Uncle Michael had died when I was a toddler.
I barely remembered him.
“Where was her mother?”
“She left.”
Dad sounded older than he had the night before.
“Michael couldn’t care for Lauren alone.”
“So you adopted her?”
“Yes.”
“Why tell everyone she was your daughter?”
“Because she was.”
There was emotion in his voice now.
“We loved her as ours.”
I thought about childhood photographs.
Lauren and me in matching dresses.
Lauren holding my hand on my first day of school.
Lauren sleeping beside me during thunderstorms.
She was my sister in every way that mattered.
But apparently she had discovered something that changed how she saw us.
“When did Lauren find out?”
“Last year.”
The timing landed like a stone.
The pregnancy.
The loss.
Then the family secret.
“How?”
“She found documents while helping us clean the attic.”
“And you told her?”
“We had no choice.”
Dad paused.
“She became convinced that your mother never really loved her.”
“Did Mom say that?”
“No.”
“Then why would Lauren believe it?”
Dad’s silence returned.
“Dad.”
Finally he said, “Because Michael left a letter.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course there was a letter.
“What did it say?”
“I never read all of it.”
“Why not?”
“Because your mother burned it.”
Before I could ask another question, James’s phone buzzed.
The police had located Lauren’s car.
It was abandoned outside a storage facility.
Inside the trunk, they found Emma’s missing hospital envelope.
But the handwritten letter was no longer inside.
Instead, there was a photograph.
It showed Mom holding newborn me in a hospital room.
Standing beside her was Uncle Michael.
And on the back, someone had written:
May you like
Tell her who her real father is.
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