Caroline Mercer arrived at my house on a rainy Thursday afternoon carrying an umbrella and a cardboard folder.
She did not look like Thomas.
That was the first thing I noticed.
I am ashamed to admit I had expected some unmistakable sign.
His eyes.
His chin.
The crooked smile Michael inherited.
Instead, Caroline was tall and dark-haired, with thoughtful brown eyes and a quiet manner.
She stood on my porch and said, “Mrs. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Caroline.”
As though there could have been another Caroline that day.
I opened the door.
“Come in.”
Michael was already there.
So were Avery and Franklin.
Sabrina was not.
Michael and Sabrina had begun marriage counseling, but they were living separately.
They had agreed that my meeting with Caroline belonged to the Mercer family until we knew what it meant.
Caroline sat in the armchair nearest the fireplace.
She declined coffee.
Accepted tea.
Then held the cup untouched.
“I should probably start by saying I’m not here to take anyone’s money.”
Franklin adjusted his glasses.
“Your attorney filed an objection to the foundation petition.”
“My attorney filed it because we needed time.”
“For what?”
“To understand why my mother kept these.”
She opened the cardboard folder.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
All written by Thomas.
My breath caught.
Caroline slid the oldest across the table.
The date was forty-three years earlier.
I had not met Thomas yet.
“My mother’s name was Rebecca Lane,” she said. “She and Thomas knew each other when they were twenty-two.”
Michael sat very still.
“They were engaged briefly.”
That surprised me.
Thomas had told me about college girlfriends.
A woman named Joan who hated camping.
A woman named Linda who taught him to dance.
Never Rebecca.
“What happened?” I asked.
“They broke up before my mother knew she was pregnant.”
“And Thomas?”
“She told him.”
Caroline’s hands tightened slightly around the cup.
“He wanted to marry her.”
I looked at the letters.
“She refused?”
Caroline nodded.
“My grandparents were extremely controlling. My mother wanted to leave town and start over. She thought marrying Thomas because she was pregnant would trap both of them.”
“But he knew you existed.”
“Yes.”
A strange emptiness opened inside me.
My husband had known he had a daughter.
For our entire marriage.
“Did he see you?”
“Once when I was a baby.”
“That’s all?”
“My mother moved.”
Caroline looked down.
“For years, she returned his letters unopened.”
Franklin examined several envelopes.
Some bore old postal stamps.
RETURN TO SENDER.
Michael finally spoke.
“How did you get the letters?”
“My grandmother kept them.”
Caroline gave a sad smile.
“She believed throwing things away was wasteful, including secrets.”
After Rebecca’s mother died, boxes of old papers went to Caroline.
By then Caroline was twenty-seven.
She found Thomas’s letters.
“I confronted my mother,” Caroline continued. “She admitted everything.”
“Did you contact Dad?” Michael asked.
“Yes.”
