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I loved them all. My wonderful family. Perhaps it had taken a while for us to get this right, but we’d finally done it, and I was happier than I ever could have imagined.
58
GRACE
Shortly after my visitors left,I heard a noise at the door and looked up, assuming they must have returned. It wasn’t the Braddocks or Desdemona though. It was Ezra.
I stiffened, and the movement tugged at the stitches in my chest. I glanced at the button to summon medical help for emergencies and wondered whether I should push it. Even though I knew Ezra hadn’t been the one to stab me, and Nate had said he had a good explanation, I was still wary of him.
“Hi, Grace.” He stopped in the doorway and held his hands out in a gesture of peace. “Can I come in?”
I hesitated. “That depends on what you want.”
“Just to talk.” He looked anxious, and that was what helped me decide how to react to his presence.
“Okay, but sit over there.” I motioned to the seat furthest from the bed.
He did as I said, scanning me as I lay on the bed. I felt self-conscious and confused.
“I’m sorry for scaring you,” he said. “I didn’t know how or when to approach you after… well, you know.”
My pulse beat rapidly at the base of my throat. “Nate said you have something to tell me.”
“I do.” He looked down at his hands for a few seconds, seeming to gather his thoughts before raising his eyes. “When my dad died recently, he left me a letter.”
“Okay.” I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.
“In it, he told me that I’m adopted.”
I frowned. Again, interesting, but how was it relevant? “You didn’t know?”
He shook his head. “I asked Mum about it. She was upset at first because she hadn’t realized Dad was planning to tell me, but when she calmed down, we talked it through, and she told me my birth parents’ names. I looked them up and found out that they had another child. A daughter.” He clasped his hands on his lap. “You.”
My lips parted. “What?”
“Yeah.” He nodded in confirmation. “Three years before you were born, your mum gave birth to me, and then put me up for adoption.”
“That can’t be right.” I searched my memory, but as far as I could recall, Mum and Dad had never mentioned having a son. Surely that was the kind of thing I’d have had an inkling of. But then, my parents weren’t exactly big sharers. I could imagine them doing what Ezra had said if they’d had an unplanned pregnancy.
“I assure you, it is. I did my homework.”
“So, what? You came here to meet me?”
“I was curious about you.” He sounded guilty, as though admitting to his curiosity was a sin. “I wanted to know what you’re like and why our parents kept you when they gave me up.”
My stomach bottomed out. If he was telling the truth, I couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt for him to learn his parents hadn’t wanted him but had wanted me. That sort of thing haunted a person.
“You didn’t miss out on much.” Perhaps knowing more about our parents would help him see that he might have been the lucky one to have been given to another family. “Mum and Dad are all about the big picture. They’re only happy when they’re fighting for a cause. They gave me the necessities growing up—a home, food, and material things—but they never seemed to care about what I wanted. I always felt like I was getting in the way of the things they’d rather be doing. As soon as they could, they left me with my aunt and joined a crew of volunteers in Africa.” I grimaced. “I know it’s awful to complain when they’re working hard for an important cause, but I was never the priority. Maybe they did you a favor.”
He hummed thoughtfully. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. I saw that they’d left the country, but I wasn’t sure why.”
I studied his face, this time noting that his eyes were a similar shade to mine and that his hair was dark too. The slopes of our noses were similar. We’d want to get a DNA test, but it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he was telling the truth. We could be related. I might have a brother.
A brother.
I turned over the word in my mind. I’d always envied the Braddocks for their large, boisterous family. Would it be nice to have a sibling?
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were from the beginning?” I asked.
