Chapter 8 - MY SISTER’S SECOND SECRET
Allison Prescott lived fourteen minutes away in Woodside.
Emily called her once.
“Come here.”
Allison went silent.
Then said, “You know.”
Emily hung up.
Her sister arrived twenty-six minutes later.
No makeup.
Hair pulled into a knot.
A linen shirt buttoned wrong at the bottom.
She saw Michael first.
Then Noah.
Then Clara sleeping in a portable bassinet.
Allison stopped.
“Oh my God.”
Emily watched her sister look at the baby.
Recognition.
Not confusion.
“How long?”
Allison sat.
“Emily.”
“How long have you known Grace was alive?”
“Eight years.”
Emily laughed.
Grant had known almost thirty-six.
Allison eight.
Every person closest to her seemed to measure betrayal in different units.
“How?”
“Mom.”
“Before she died.”
“Yes.”
Emily looked at the unopened letter from Eleanor still lying in Marissa’s document pouch.
Grant had advised her not to read it alone.
Emily had hated him for that.
Now she was almost grateful she had waited.
“What did Mom tell you?”
“That the baby lived.”
“And?”
“That she arranged the adoption.”
“Did she say I consented?”
Allison began crying.
“No.”
“Did she say Grant knew?”
“Yes.”
Emily looked at Grant.
He had come because she summoned Allison but had stayed near the far end of the room.
“Did she say Michael came to the hospital?”
“Yes.”
Michael looked away.
Emily felt suddenly tired.
“Why did you keep it from me?”
Allison pressed both hands together.
“Mom was dying.”
“That’s irrelevant.”
“No. She made me promise.”
“So did Grant.”
Allison looked at him.
“What?”
“Apparently Mom collected promises.”
Emily sat.
“Did you know where Grace was?”
“Not at first.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
“The same time she contacted me.”
Allison nodded.
“Grant called me.”
Emily’s eyes moved to him.
Of course.
“What did he tell you?”
“That a woman claiming to be Grace had contacted the house.”
“Claiming.”
“I asked for DNA.”
“Did you get it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t call me.”
Allison covered her face.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
Emily laughed.
Michael looked at the ceiling.
Noah stared at the floor.
The phrase had become obscene.
“From what?”
“You had finally stopped marking the date.”
Emily froze.
Every June 17, she used to disappear.
No dinners.
No meetings.
She went to the cemetery plot where the memorial plaque for Baby Girl Prescott sat beside her grandparents.
Four years earlier, she had not gone.
Grant suggested Napa.
She agreed.
Apparently everyone noticed.
“You thought because I didn’t go to a cemetery once, I was cured.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I thought you had built a life around surviving it.”
“And Grace would interfere.”
Allison’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
Emily stood and walked to the window.
Atherton’s summer evening looked perfect.
A gardener’s truck moved down the road.
A neighbor jogged past behind hedges.
No part of the outside world reflected what had happened inside the room.
“When did you meet her?”
Allison did not answer quickly enough.
“When?”
“Last year.”
Emily turned.
“You met my daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Sacramento.”
“What did she look like?”
The question escaped before Emily could stop it.
Allison’s face crumpled.
“Like you when you’re trying not to laugh.”
Emily sat again.
“Did she hate me?”
“No.”
“Did she believe Grant?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“She stopped.”
“What changed?”
“St. Agnes.”
The forged relinquishment.
Helen.
The birth records.
Allison continued.
“She called me after she found them.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
“Which truth?”
“That you never knew.”
Noah looked up.
His eyes filled.
Emily whispered, “She knew before she died.”
“Yes.”
The grief changed shape again.
Grace had died knowing her mother had not rejected her.
It was not enough.
But it mattered.
“Why didn’t she come?”
Allison looked toward Noah.
“She wanted to.”
Noah shook his head.
“She got sick.”
Allison nodded.
The pregnancy was high risk after a previous cardiac complication Noah had never known about.
Grace wanted to tell Emily in person after Clara was born.
She told Allison she did not want her first meeting with her mother to happen in a hospital waiting room.
“She said she wanted to stand on her own feet,” Allison whispered.
Emily closed her eyes.
That sounded like a Prescott woman.
Stubborn even when stubbornness hurt.
“Why did you tell Grant about her medical care?”
“I needed help paying for specialists without explaining to you.”
“You could have told me.”
“I know.”
Emily looked at her.
Allison flinched at the phrase.
Good.
“Why involve Grant?”
“He knew her insurance information. He had helped before.”
“So the two of you built a secret healthcare system around my daughter.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It was awful.”
Allison nodded.
“Yes.”
For the first time, no defense.
Emily felt something loosen.
Not forgiveness.
Possibility.
“What happened when she went into labor?”
“Allison got the call.”
Grant answered.
Emily looked at both of them.
“She was transferred to ICU?”
“Yes,” Allison said.
“And nobody called me.”
Allison began crying again.
“I thought she would make it.”
“You thought.”
“Yes.”
“When did you know she wouldn’t?”
“Tuesday morning.”
“What time?”
“Six-ten.”
Grace died at 6:42.
Thirty-two minutes.
Emily stared at her sister.
“You had thirty-two minutes.”
“I know.”
Noah stood and walked out.
The front door closed.
Emily started after him.
Michael touched her arm.
“Let him.”
She looked at him.
“He lost her.”
“So did you.”
“Not the same way.”
“No.”
Michael let go.
That distinction mattered too.
At eight, Denise Holloway called from Sacramento County.
The temporary kinship arrangement for Clara could continue for forty-eight more hours while the county located the named biological father and verified Noah’s housing.
“Does Ms. Walker intend to be considered as a placement resource?” Denise asked.
Emily looked at Clara.
“I don’t know what I’m legally allowed to intend.”
“That’s fair.”
Emily almost smiled.
“We can start background checks without committing you.”
“Do it.”
After the call, Noah returned.
His face was blotchy from crying.
He sat beside the bassinet.
Emily sat on the floor across from him.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
He looked at Clara.
“Mom said you’d say that.”
Emily’s breath caught.
“What else did she say?”
Noah pulled out a spiral notebook.
Grace’s journal.
He opened to a marked page.
“Last month.”
Emily read.
Allison finally told me Emily never knew.
I should feel relieved.
Instead I keep wondering who made the first decision.
Mom says Eleanor.
Grant says Eleanor.
Allison says Eleanor.
Everyone blames the dead woman.
But I found one thing they don’t know I found.
Grant was at St. Agnes before Eleanor arrived.
Emily looked up.
“That’s impossible.”
Grant had said Eleanor called his family.
Noah turned the page.
Grace had copied a security log from the hospital archive.
June 17, 1990.
11:52 p.m.
Visitor:
GRANT WALKER.
May you like
Emily’s mother did not arrive until 12:34 a.m.
Grant had been there forty-two minutes first.
