she didn’t see. She felt coldness in her hands and feet and a tingling sensation along her spine. Her breathing was labored. Despite the pounding behind her eyes, she forced her focus back to the neat script, the sentences following the inauspicious beginning.
Having learned of Foster’s tragic death, I find myself unable to remain anonymous anymore. Although I imagine that as a family you are suffering through a difficult period of grief and mourning, I believe it is time to offer Avery information about myself. As a psychiatrist, I more than understand how hard this awakening will be, and if she rejects my overtures, I will respect that decision. But I want her to understand why I made the choices that I did. My only concern is for her well-being. Sixteen years is a long time but not a lifetime.
The signature belonged to Morgan Reese.
Faith dropped the letter as if it were laced with anthrax and watched it flutter for a moment before falling to the floor. She knew the name.
She rose and ran through the dining room. She banged open the swinging pantry doors, continued through the kitchen, and stopped only when she came to the mudroom off the side of the house. It was a rectangular space with a slate floor, the only room in the house that rarely, if ever, got the housekeeper’s attention. Boots of various sizes formed a haphazard line along one wall. Jackets and hats were piled high on hooks. A croquet set with the mallets askew in the stand, gardening tools stored in a bucket, three folding lawn chairs, several shopping bags filled with donations for the Salvation Army, and the recycling bin for newspapers were crowded into the small space. Her attention immediately turned to the bin, which she tore through, throwing newspapers aside in her search for one particular Sunday section. Had it been one week ago or two? Could it have been three?
Faith remembered reading a profile. Everyone who had the slightest interest in the development of the area was following the story of who would become the director of the Wilder Center. There had been stories over the past weeks of all the doctors who had made the short list. As she’d sipped her coffee with warm milk and eaten two slices of oatmeal bread with margarine and cinnamon, she’d thought it interesting that nowhere in the lengthy article that outlined all of Dr. Reese’s accomplishments, publications, and prestigious research positions was there any mention of a husband or children. But she’d dismissed that anomaly as either the necessary sacrifice of success or the selfishness she’d seen generally in people without children. She’d never suspected the truth: that this stranger had solved Faith’s infertility problem by making her a mother of her own twins.
Her hands were black with newsprint before she found it. The front page of the Health Section had several coffee rings on it and the pages had been improperly refolded. Nonetheless the face on the cover was unmistakable. MORGAN REESE—THE QUEEN OF MENTAL HEALTH, the headline read.
She was about Faith’s age, attractive, and similarly slender. She examined the picture. Was Morgan wearing a Chanel suit? Faith had several of her own carefully tailored designer outfits arranged by season in her walk-in closet. She scanned the text that she’d read so innocently at the time. They were both from good families, Main Line stock, and had been presented to society within a few years of one another. They probably knew many of the same people. Were they interchangeable but for the pile of credentials possessed by one and not the other?
She’d never wanted to tell the children they were adopted in the first place. There was nothing to be gained. They were a family. But Bill had insisted, and she’d finally acquiesced. Then look what happened. Even though they’d had no name, no identity, no biological parent wanting to reconnect, it had still been the biggest mistake she’d ever made. And the costliest.
How
Having learned of Foster’s tragic death, I find myself unable to remain anonymous anymore. Although I imagine that as a family you are suffering through a difficult period of grief and mourning, I believe it is time to offer Avery information about myself. As a psychiatrist, I more than understand how hard this awakening will be, and if she rejects my overtures, I will respect that decision. But I want her to understand why I made the choices that I did. My only concern is for her well-being. Sixteen years is a long time but not a lifetime.
The signature belonged to Morgan Reese.
Faith dropped the letter as if it were laced with anthrax and watched it flutter for a moment before falling to the floor. She knew the name.
She rose and ran through the dining room. She banged open the swinging pantry doors, continued through the kitchen, and stopped only when she came to the mudroom off the side of the house. It was a rectangular space with a slate floor, the only room in the house that rarely, if ever, got the housekeeper’s attention. Boots of various sizes formed a haphazard line along one wall. Jackets and hats were piled high on hooks. A croquet set with the mallets askew in the stand, gardening tools stored in a bucket, three folding lawn chairs, several shopping bags filled with donations for the Salvation Army, and the recycling bin for newspapers were crowded into the small space. Her attention immediately turned to the bin, which she tore through, throwing newspapers aside in her search for one particular Sunday section. Had it been one week ago or two? Could it have been three?
Faith remembered reading a profile. Everyone who had the slightest interest in the development of the area was following the story of who would become the director of the Wilder Center. There had been stories over the past weeks of all the doctors who had made the short list. As she’d sipped her coffee with warm milk and eaten two slices of oatmeal bread with margarine and cinnamon, she’d thought it interesting that nowhere in the lengthy article that outlined all of Dr. Reese’s accomplishments, publications, and prestigious research positions was there any mention of a husband or children. But she’d dismissed that anomaly as either the necessary sacrifice of success or the selfishness she’d seen generally in people without children. She’d never suspected the truth: that this stranger had solved Faith’s infertility problem by making her a mother of her own twins.
Her hands were black with newsprint before she found it. The front page of the Health Section had several coffee rings on it and the pages had been improperly refolded. Nonetheless the face on the cover was unmistakable. MORGAN REESE—THE QUEEN OF MENTAL HEALTH, the headline read.
She was about Faith’s age, attractive, and similarly slender. She examined the picture. Was Morgan wearing a Chanel suit? Faith had several of her own carefully tailored designer outfits arranged by season in her walk-in closet. She scanned the text that she’d read so innocently at the time. They were both from good families, Main Line stock, and had been presented to society within a few years of one another. They probably knew many of the same people. Were they interchangeable but for the pile of credentials possessed by one and not the other?
She’d never wanted to tell the children they were adopted in the first place. There was nothing to be gained. They were a family. But Bill had insisted, and she’d finally acquiesced. Then look what happened. Even though they’d had no name, no identity, no biological parent wanting to reconnect, it had still been the biggest mistake she’d ever made. And the costliest.
How
Similar Books
