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Parker wondered what was on Jason’s mind because he looked at his wife for a long moment. Her nod was slight, but Parker caught it. So, too, did Jenny. She was sitting between him and Dale, and he felt her tense.
Jason turned his attention to her just then. “Sweetheart, you’re too perceptive by half. Your mother and I know you’ve been on tenterhooks all day. You’ve probably been worried since we called last week and told you we wanted to visit. We were going to wait until we were alone, just the three of us, to talk to you about something, but this is better. It’s a personal matter, yes, but I can feel the honest friendship in this room.”
Jenny paled. Parker and Dale, sitting on either side of her, each took one of her hands. “Are you or Mom sick?”
“No, baby, nothing like that. And it may turn out to be nothing but…” Jason stopped talking and looked at Camille.
“But it might be something, and you need to know.” She looked around the table. “You all know Jenny was adopted.” There were murmurings of assent around the table.
Parker knew Jenny was open about her past and proud of her parents, of having been adopted. That had been clear to him and Dale since the first time she ever talked about them.
“Jason and I had been trying to have a baby for a long time before we had tests done and discovered we couldn’t. My best friend, Linda Welsh, is a nurse at Montgomery-Freeborn hospital in Dallas. She’s worked there for years, and she was on duty the day that Jenny and her birth mother were brought in.” Camille sat forward at the table, her hands clasped together. Jason laid his hand on her back. It was the kind of thing a man did to comfort his wife and lend her some of his strength.
Jenny gripped Parker’s hand tighter. He moved subtly closer to her. It didn’t surprise him in the least that Dale, on her other side, did the same thing.
“It was clear there was nothing anyone could do for the injured young woman. Linda stayed with Jenny’s birth mother. She regained consciousness just before she died. She said her name was Mandy, and she begged Linda to take care of her baby. To see to it she found a good home for her. Linda asked her what her last name was—the woman hadn’t been carrying any identification. She said ‘Smith’. Linda questioned her on that, but Mandy shook her head and said it didn’t matter. And then she said something that frightened Linda, and me, when she shared it a few hours later. She said, ‘Don’t let my family have Marissa Jayne. They’ll kill her just like they’ve killed me.’ Linda tried to get her to explain, but she slipped into a coma, and then, a few minutes later, she was gone.
“At the time, I worked with the department of children’s services. Linda contacted me. I was able to check recent birth records and found a registration for a Marissa Jayne Smith, mother named Mandy. So, between us, we saw to it that the records showed that a Mandy Smith had died claiming no family, except for her infant daughter, who she asked Linda to care for. The other nurses present, who’d done their best to help the young woman, overheard the request, except they hadn’t caught the baby’s name.”
“You and Aunt Linda…circumvented the adoption process?” Jenny seemed to be having a hard time wrapping her head around what her mother was saying.
“I fell in love with you at first sight—as did your father. And, we were all afraid for you,” Camille said. “Linda said your birth mother was clearly terrified of her family. We didn’t know what she’d meant, and there was no time, really, to wait and see. We didn’t know if maybe whoever had struck Mandy had done so deliberately, and would come looking for you. So, we acted quickly…we falsified the adoption papers, and I immediately resigned from my job, without telling my supervisor anything. They didn’t know I now had a daughter. But in the end, as it turned out, no one came looking for you.” Camille closed her eyes then opened them again. “No one asked about you—until three months ago. Linda just found out the day I called you that someone had been asking about that accident and looking into the old files. A private investigator.”
