Halsey looked at me gently. “Your father was Eleanor’s son.”
I nodded. “He died when I was twenty.”
I understood now why Eleanor’s words had always landed somewhere deeper than they should have.
I pointed to the name on the birth certificate.
Why being in her kitchen had felt like coming home before I ever knew the place.
I hadn’t spent four years caring for a lonely widow.
I’d spent four years caring for my grandmother.
And neither of us had known.
Joanne covered her mouth and began to cry.
Marlene sank into a chair.
Being in her kitchen had felt like coming home.
“You knew there had been a child,” Joanne said to her sister. “You let her spend her whole life searching.”
Marlene stared at the floor.
For once, she had nothing to say.
***
Months later, I sat in Eleanor’s yellow kitchen.
The sewing machine rested on the table, polished, its gold letters catching the light.
