LITMIR.BIZ

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quite like this. I ask you all to bear with me and forgive me in advance if I don’t do this well.”

      “Just read the damn letter, Stan. We’re fine,” Sam said, with the authority of one who believed he had the right to speak for everyone.

      With her father’s condescending tone ringing through the room, Belle shot Sue a glance. Rolled her eyes. And Sue was reminded of a hundred other times she and Belle had commiserated over their dysfunctional family.

      Then her eyes landed on Camden and she had to look away. She’d given away fifteen infants. She was used to it. Fine with it. It was a part of the job she accepted. Today, she had no idea how she was going to pull it off.

      Stan unfolded a piece of blue stationary, and even from her vantage point, Sue recognized Sarah’s distinctive, flowing handwriting.

      “ ‘My dearests, it is with a very full heart that I sit down to write to you. First, because I know that by the time you get this, I will be gone from this earth, from you. Sam, Jenny, Emily, Luke, Belle and my sweet Sue, I loved you all so much.’”

      Sue’s neck ached. Her back ached. Her head started to ache. Tears filled her eyes.

      “ ‘And it is with great difficulty that I tell you, in death, what I could not bring myself to tell you in life, with hopes that somehow the truth will serve you well.’”

      Frozen, Sue stood there. Grandma had secrets? She didn’t believe it. Not for a second. Grandma Sarah had been the most perfect individual Sue had ever known. She’d spent her life trying to be even half the woman Grandma was.

      “ ‘My husband, Robert Carson, fathered three children. Our son, Sam, and our adopted daughter, Jenny. And Adam Fraser. Adam is Robert’s firstborn son by a matter of weeks. Jenny was born later, to the same woman who gave birth to Adam.’”

      Sam jumped up. “That’s a lie!” His accusing gaze went from the lawyer to Adam Fraser and back, as though the two of them had concocted this scheme.

      Adam’s reaction, in comparison, was almost nonexistent, though the words he uttered softly were almost the same. “That’s impossible.”

      Joe didn’t move at all.

      “Oh, my God,” Jenny murmured, her mouth open, the papers in her hand trembling as she started to cry.

      “What the hell!” Sam’s outburst spewed spittle. “You expect me to believe that my father was a cheat who had two bastard children?”

      “Sam, sit down,” the lawyer ordered. There was no mistaking the underlying warning that while Sam was in his office, he’d either do as Stan said, or be removed.

      Sue glanced at Belle, more out of habit than anything else. Sue felt cold. And hot. And confused. Her mind reeled as she tried to take in the ramifications of what they were hearing.

      “Robert was my biological grandfather?” She directed the question to Stan, but in fact just wanted out of this nightmare.

      “Yes.”

      “My father was really my father.” Jenny’s voice was weak, disbelieving.

      “It’s all a bunch of lies,” Sam spat. “Someone put her up to this, blackmailed her to write that. My mother would never have stood for such a thing. She’d never have raised her husband’s bastard child.”

      “Watch yourself,” Luke said quietly, with a menace that Sue had never heard from him before. He pulled Jenny closer, looking for Sue at the same time. She met his gaze briefly, and then, when tears threatened again, she turned away.

      Someone had to stay rational here. To make sense of this. To get them all out of it.

      “Billy Fraser was my father,” Adam said, his volume almost rivaling Sam’s now. “He died in a car accident just months before I was born.”

      “Billy Fraser?” Sam asked, his eyes hard as he stared at the man who, if any of this was true, was his half brother. “He was Dad’s best friend. They went to high school together. Fought in the war together.”

      “And he died before Adam was conceived.” Stan’s words dropped like bombs between them.

      “This is all wrong,” Sam yelled, as though if he spoke loudly enough he’d convince them all. “My mother was out of her mind.”

      “I assure you Sarah was in full faculty and acting of her own accord when she brought this letter to me,” Stan said, holding up a folder. “There are other documents here—Jenny’s original birth certificate, adoption papers, blood work that was done shortly after Adam was born. If you still aren’t convinced, you could have DNA tests done, but I don’t think you’ll find that necessary after you look at all of this.”

      “You’re telling us my father was unfaithful to my…adoptive mother?” Jenny asked.

      “That’s preposterous.” Sam stood again, moved toward the coffee cart in the far corner of the room, but didn’t go so far as to pour himself a cup. “There’s no way my father would have done this!” More quietly, he added, “Dad was not a womanizer. He was loyal.”

      For once, her uncle seemed to be truly at a loss.

      “And this man—” Jenny, with tears still on her lashes, glanced to her left “—you…are my brother? My…full brother?”

      Adam didn’t move. But he stared back. Almost as if by looking at her, there’d be some kind of recognition.

      “Wait,” Sue said, struggling hard with the emotions swirling around her. And inside her.

      Her beloved Sarah had faced the heartache of infidelity? And lied to them all? To Jenny? Letting her think she was adopted when, in fact, she was as much a Carson as Sam was?

      And what about Adam? How come Robert and Sarah hadn’t adopted him? Why hadn’t any of them even known him? Had Robert just turned his back on his firstborn? Then why not on Jenny?

      Robert had had an affair with a woman while having a baby with his wife at the same time? And the affair had continued long enough that Jenny was also conceived?

      Was nothing sacred?

      While Stan turned over Sarah’s letter to her children, Sue asked Joe, “Do you believe any of this?”

      He looked as stunned as she felt.

      “This sounds like another one of my father’s fantastic tales,” Joe said softly. And then, after glancing toward his dad, said to the room at large, “So we’re to believe that my father spent his whole life thinking his father was dead, when instead the man was alive and well right here in San Francisco?”

      “I’m telling you, this is bullshit.” Shaking his head, Sam handed his mother’s letter back to the lawyer and pinned his half brother with his infamous menacing stare at the same time. “If you think I’m going to stand for this, you’re sadly mistaken.” Sue wasn’t sure if Sam was addressing Stan, Adam or both.

      Stan handed the letter to Adam, who sat on the couch, head bent over it as he read.

      Sam paced. Belle and Emily spoke quietly, watching him. Luke and Jenny were deep in conversation, Luke rubbing his wife’s arm. Sue just wanted to escape.

      “Sam, come sit down.” Emily’s voice was encouraging. Loving.

      Sue didn’t know how she did it.

      “I will not.” Sam strode over to her, though, standing behind her. Facing Adam. And Joe and Sue.

       Adam, her uncle? And…

      And Joe…Camden whimpered. Sue watched as her cousin gently lifted him, crooned to him. And then, with a mind that felt drugged, she offered, “Belle, this means we’re cousins by blood.”

      Finally, a ray of sunshine in the whole crazy mess. She and Belle shared blood!

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