Once Again (25 page)

After the introductions and polite hellos, we
sat down to talk.

“We appreciate you taking the time to talk
with us,” Gwen said, stirring half-and-half into her coffee.

“I hope you didn’t make a special trip,”
Brooke replied. “I usually make it up to Camden once every couple
of months.”

Luke and I looked at each other, both
thinking the same thing. We didn’t have two months.

“We made a day of it,” Gwen said. “Lucas is
planning to run the BAA 5K in the spring, so we took a look at the
route, then decided to show Layla a bit of Boston.”

“That’s nice.” Brooke smiled at me, then
looked at Lucas. “You’re quite the runner, I’ve heard.”

Luke just shrugged. “I enjoy it.”

“You mentioned some family research that
might somehow overlap with mine?” Brooke asked, looking back at
Gwen.

“That’s right. But Lucas is the one who’s
been researching, so I’ll let him tell you about it.”

“Basically I’ve discovered a connection
between my family and the Emersons who own the antique store on Old
Birch Lane.”

Brooke nodded in recognition, and Lucas went
on, leaving out lots of things that no one else needed to know. “I
ran across a name in Arthur Emerson’s will that I recognized from
some of my mom’s records. Amelia Cutler.”

Brooke smiled. “My great-grandmother.”

Luke went on. “Then we spoke with Patsy
Emerson in Camden, and she told us about you.”

“Our family scattered so much,” Brooke said.
“I wish we’d managed to stay closer to the ones who are still
around, like William and Patsy.”

“Life gets in the way of things sometimes,”
Gwen offered.

“Patsy also told us you knew something about
what might’ve happened to Leo Emerson and his wife. Some tragic
story.” Beneath the table, Luke reached for my hand. “I was
wondering if you could tell us about that.”

“The story changed a lot over the years, or
so my mom said,” Brooke replied, her smile reaching the blue eyes
that matched her scrubs. “I’m sure it was embellished and
exaggerated, but I suppose that’s what makes folklore
memorable.”

“Folklore makes for an interesting addition
to bland genealogy charts,” Gwen said.

“True.” Brooke scooted her chair closer to
the table, leaned across in order to talk softer. “Leo was accused
of murdering a girl he had courted before he and Lillian married.
She had apparently caused them no end of trouble, and her jealousy
had become quite the thorn in their sides. Her body was found,
partially naked and stabbed to death, on the banks of the creek
behind Leo and Lillian’s home. The townspeople immediately accused
Leo. Nothing in the story suggests there was any evidence
incriminating him, but in those days justice wasn’t always
rational. There wasn’t much chance that Leo would be found
innocent, so he and Lillian disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Luke and I said in unison. We
knew very well that the two of them hardly just skipped town.

My hand felt clammy against Luke’s and my
pulse picked up.

“That’s the story,” Brooke shrugged. “Leo and
Lillian fled the town to escape being punished for the murder. But
personally, I’ve never believed Leo was guilty.”

“And why is that?” Gwen asked, her voice cool
and calm. I wondered how she did that when Luke and I were just
about to crawl out of our skin.

“My mother always doubted the stories she’d
heard from her great-aunts. She said they were terrible gossips,
and delighted in telling the gruesome tale of how Leo murdered his
former love interest. She much preferred the story she heard from
her great-grandmother. She was twelve years old when Leo and
Lillian disappeared, and she believed Leo to be as kind and good as
a man could possibly be, and she firmly believed he’d been wrongly
accused. She always said that if he’d run from the law, it was
because the law was wrong.”

“Wow,” Lucas said, clearing his throat.
“Quite the family story.”

“Oh, here’s something interesting for your
family records.” Brooke’s eyes lit up, remembering. “My mother said
her great-grandmother was fond of a little poem Leo’s wife used to
recite,” Brooke said.
“Think you your acts will bring you joy.
But hate and malice you employ. For the things you want you’ll
always yearn. Until the day you finally learn.”

Luke nudged my arm with his elbow, and I knew
exactly what he meant. Picking up a pen, I opened my notebook and
began jotting down the words to the poem.

“Maybe I’ve overly romanticized the entire
tale,” Brooke continued, “but I like to think those words have some
meaning within the story.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Gwen reached across
the table and patted Brooke’s hand. “Thanks so much for taking the
time to talk to us. All of this will make for great additions to
Luke’s research.”

“It wasn’t any trouble,” Brooke said. “And I
hope you’re enjoying seeing the city, Layla, although you’re not
seeing much of it here.”

“I bet people from all over come here,” I
said. Figuring I had nothing to lose and the potential to gain
monumental information, I decided to go on. “I was born in this
hospital.”

Brooke looked puzzled. “I thought you moved
to Sky Cove from Tennessee this summer.”

“I did.” I took a deep breath and felt Luke’s
arm come around my shoulder, a silent show of support. “I was
adopted.”

For part of a moment, everyone sat silent,
and I could see the wheels turning in Brooke’s mind.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in January.” I
held my breath, torn between hoping she had information about my
birth and wishing I didn’t need to know.

“Strange,” Brooke said, talking more to
herself than to any of us. “Could it be?”

I waited to speak until she looked at me. “Do
you know something about my birth mother?” Her eyes locked on mine
and had it not been for Lucas’s touch, I would’ve sworn Brooke and
I were the only two people in the room.

“I’m not exactly sure,” she said. “And I
probably shouldn’t say anything. I didn’t work here at the time.
Not to mention that adoption records are confidential for a reason.
The information is very personal.”

“Ms. McKenna,” I began, leaning forward in
order to speak more directly to her. “I’ve always known I was
adopted. My parents have been open about it my entire life. I’ve
never had the desire to seek out my birth parents, and in many ways
I still don’t. But Luke’s research into his family history has
given us reason to believe that our two families might be connected
somehow, which is, of course, a surprise. If you have information
that could help us confirm that, it would be very helpful.”

Brooke looked from Lucas to me and back
again. She probably thought we feared we might be cousins or
something, which would put a big kibosh on our dating
situation.

Perhaps that’s why she decided to be
forthcoming. “It’s just so strange. Before she married Leo,
Lillian’s last name was Bostridge. Seventeen years ago, I was still
living in Sky Cove, working for a doctor in Camden, and sometime in
September of that year, one of the local high school girls, who’s
last name was also Bostridge, left town for a few months. The story
was that her parents disapproved of her older boyfriend so they
sent her to spend some time with relatives in Boston. I’ve always
tried not to pay too much attention to the rumor mill, but Sky Cove
is a small community, and word spread that the real reason she’d
left for Boston was because she was pregnant.”

“Did the rumor turn out to be true?” I asked,
the shaking in my voice mimicking the trembling inside me.

Brooke shook her head. “No one ever knew for
sure. But she came back to town in March, re-enrolled in Sky Cove
Senior High, and went on to graduate two years later.”

“You said her name was Bostridge. Do you know
anything else about her?”

“That’s the truly strange part,” Brooke said.
“I have no idea if she’s related to Lillian’s family or not, and I
hadn’t even realized the irony of the names until this moment.”

“What irony?” I asked.

“The girl’s name was Ashley Bostridge, and in
May of this year, she married Seth Emerson, of Emerson’s House of
Antiques.”

My stomach dropped. My heart pounded
furiously, and sweat beaded on my forehead. Tears welled in my
eyes, but I refused to let them spill. Information swirled in my
head so quickly that I couldn’t make sense of it all.

Ashley Emerson - with the dark auburn hair
and the bright green eyes - was my birth mother. It didn’t matter
that we didn’t have confirmation or DNA proof or anything else. I
knew it was true.

Hadn’t I felt that strange sense of
recognition the first time I met her?

And there it was. The second intersecting
event. The two families - Bostridge and Emerson - connecting once
again when Ashley married Seth.

My brain pounded, trying to process the
information that my heart refused to acknowledge. Luke’s hand
gripping mine, and his arm squeezing my shoulders brought me back
to reality.

“Thank you,” I whispered. “And I promise to
treat this information with the utmost discretion.”

Luke, Gwen, and I stood. The two them of said
their goodbyes to Brooke McKenna while I silently walked across the
hospital cafeteria.

A bulldozer might as well have just plowed me
down. It couldn’t feel anymore bewildering or painful than this.
The logical side of my brain knew that the information about my
birth was important to the journey Lucas and I were on. But the
emotional side of me wanted no part of it, and I felt overwhelming
sadness by the thought that I’d somehow betrayed my mom and dad by
uncovering what had to be the identity of my birth mother.

Putting one foot in front of the other became
almost impossible.

Then Luke took my hand and leaned down to
kiss my cheek. “Let’s just go. We’ll talk about it later.”

I appreciated the silence that Lucas and Gwen
afforded me, but thirty minutes into the car ride home, I felt like
talking.

“I guess we know the other intersecting event
now,” I said.

“Yeah.” Luke shifted toward me in the back
seat. “Ashley and Seth got married in May and you came to Sky cove
in July.”

“It’s too much to just be coincidence.” Gwen
spoke from the driver’s seat. “I imagine the two families
connecting again through marriage was a powerful force. And with
the two of you, apparently both descendants of these families, now
in close proximity and involved with each other...” her voice
trailed off.

I stared out the window.

“Layla, I’m so sorry,” Luke whispered. “I
know you feel awful, and I feel so bad about it.”

I shook my head. “It’s not your fault,
Luke.”

“Maybe I’m not responsible, but I still feel
guilty.”

“I know.” I looked at him and managed a
half-smile. “Just like I know I shouldn’t feel like I’ve done
something awful to my parents by figuring out who my birth mother
is, but I still feel lousy about it.”

“I wish things were different,” he said.

“Michelle Bradford is my mother.” Saying it
out loud seemed to remind me of the fact that no matter who’d given
birth to me, the people who’d raised me were my parents. And though
I knew it would take some time before I felt okay about it all, I
also knew that nothing would ever change the way I felt about my
mom and dad.

“Besides,” I continued. “There’s more to be
concerned about than just me feeling rotten. After what we saw in
the last dream, you’re going to need to be careful and not be
around Kara at all. If we’re right, and Leo was falsely accused of
harming his old girlfriend, you’ve got to take extra
precautions.”

He nodded in agreement. “Next week is full
anyway. State cross-country is a week from today, so there’s a
rigid practice schedule all week long. Plus, we have the Tolstoy
test coming up, and I have two papers due pretty soon. And any free
time I have is for you.”

Mom,
Dad, and I had just finished Sunday lunch when my cell phone buzzed
in my pocket. The caller ID told me it was Lucas. I answered as I
headed upstairs toward my room.

“Hey Luke.”

“How are you?”

He’d been so concerned about me yesterday.
Finding out that Ashley Emerson was my birth mother had been a
shock, and I still hadn’t been able to reconcile that knowledge
with my deep love for my parents.

But I would.

“I’m fine.” I stepped into my bedroom and
pushed the door shut behind me.

“I wanted to call last night, but I knew
you’d be with your parents.”

Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I heard the
question he hadn’t asked. He wanted to know if it had been odd or
awkward being with them after what we’d learned in Boston.

“It wasn’t weird,” I said. “I thought it
would be hard to interact with Mom and Dad normally, but it wasn’t.
The minute I walked in the house, everything was familiar and
right.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “I was worried about
you.”
“I guess my brain sort of compartmentalized everything. It’s like I
have this bit of knowledge tucked away and it’s not allowed to
affect anything else.”

I didn’t have to do anything with the
information I’d uncovered. My parents didn’t have to know. Ashley
Emerson didn’t have to know. I could file it away for later, and
when I was older, I could petition the court in Tennessee to unseal
my records.

But only if I chose to.

Knowing I had the choice was both comforting
and empowering.

“Do you think you have a compartment left for
something else?” he asked. “Because I have an idea.”

“You do?” I asked, intrigued.

“I thought maybe if we went down to the
beach, maybe we could somehow talk to them, or get them to talk to
us.”

It was an idea. One worth thinking about. I
wondered why we hadn’t thought to try it before. “You mean like
when we asked them to show us things in our dreams?”