Where Dad had helped Brandon fill out college applications while I filled out mine alone at the other end.
Mom wrapped both hands around her mug.
“The cabin belonged to a woman named Margaret Lane.”
“Who was she?”
Mom looked at me.
“She was my sister.”
I stared at her.
“You don’t have a sister.”
“I did.”
Every assumption I had brought into the room disappeared.
“What happened to her?”
“She died when you were very young.”
“Why have I never heard her name?”
Mom’s eyes shone.
“Because after she died, talking about her became too painful for my parents.
And then the longer we didn’t talk, the harder it became to explain why.”
“What does Grandma Eleanor have to do with her?”
“Margaret and your grandmother became friends.”
“Hvordan?”
“Because of you.”
I stopped breathing.
Mom reached across the table but didn’t touch my hand.
She waited.
“Natalie,” she said softly, “there is something about the first year of your life that your father and I should have told you a long time ago.”
I stared at her.
“Hva?”
Her answer came quietly.
“Margaret wasn’t simply your aunt.”
And in that moment, I understood that page seven wasn’t hiding another financial secret.
It was hiding the beginning of my own story.
-END OF PART 3–PRESS NEX PART IN BOTTOM OF PAGE TO READ NEXT PART
