Chapter 6 - THE SISTER I NEVER KNEW I HAD
Rebecca Price answered my call cautiously.
“Yes?”
“My name is Laura Mercer.”
Silence.
“I think we may share a father.”
Another silence.
Longer.
Then:
“You found the box.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“How do you know about the box?”
“My father told me.”
Joe looked up from across the room.
I had made him sit ten feet away.
“What did he say?”
“That if Margaret died before him, eventually somebody would dig beneath the maple.”
A chill moved through me.
Peter had known exactly where his evidence was buried.
“How?”
Rebecca sighed.
“Because he watched them bury it.”
I stared at Joe.
His face went white.
“You said Peter drove away.”
“He did.”
Rebecca heard him.
“That Joe?”
“Yes.”
“Tell him Dad came back.”
Joe stood.
“What?”
Rebecca continued.
Peter returned to Mom’s property shortly before dawn.
He stayed beyond the fence.
He watched Mom and Joe bury the metal box.
Neither saw him.
Or at least Peter believed they didn’t.
Then he left town.
“He told you all this?”
“Eventually.”
“Where is he now?”
Rebecca became quiet.
“He died three years ago.”
I closed my eyes.
Another chance gone before I knew it existed.
“How?”
“Liver failure.”
“Did he ever talk about me?”
“All the time.”
I hated how much that hurt.
Rebecca did not romanticize him.
“He wasn’t a good man when he was younger, Laura.”
“I know about the blackmail.”
“He told me.”
“He was ashamed of it later.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
Then she said something unexpected.
“He didn’t hate Margaret.”
I almost laughed.
“She paid him to stay away.”
“At first.”
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca explained.
Peter accepted blackmail money for years.
Then, after moving to Vermont, he started trying to repay it.
Small amounts.
Anonymous cashier’s checks.
Most were returned.
Mom wanted nothing from him.
“Did he ever try to contact me?”
“Yes.”
My heart stopped.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“When?”
“After I graduated high school.”
“After Emily was born.”
“And about ten years ago.”
I looked at Joe.
He looked confused.
“I never knew about ten years ago.”
Rebecca continued.
“The letters came back.”
“Who returned them?”
“I don’t know.”
Then she said:
“I have the last one.”
Peter had kept a copy.
Rebecca offered to mail it.
Before we ended the call, I asked:
“Why did he tell you about Joe?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Because he said Joe was the only person in the whole mess who repeatedly told Margaret to tell you the truth.”
I looked at my husband.
May you like
For twenty-seven years, I had assumed Mom and Joe disliked each other because they were different.
Now I learned they had spent those same years fighting over whether I deserved to know who I was.
