a liar. He had betrayed her mother and her and everyone they knew.
How had he gotten away with this for so long? How had he managed to keep each family a secret from each other as well as everyone else? In this day and age, with cell phones and e-mail and the Internet, how had he continued to keep his two lives separate?
She stared into space for a long time. It was only when a squirrel scampered across the path, startling the pigeons that were scavenging for food, that she was jerked out of her painful thoughts and she once more picked up the letter to finish reading it.
The letter ended with contact information for both Glynnis and her twin brother Gregg. Sabrina was startled to see that they lived only a couple of hours away, just north of Columbus. Somehow she’d envisioned her father’s second life as taking place far from Rockwell.
Maybe you would prefer going to Gregg and telling him the truth and letting him break the news to Glynnis. Yes, this might be the best way.
Sabrina, please tell your mother that I am sorry about the scandal this will cause. I know how much her position in the town and her social circle matters to her.
Dear heaven, Sabrina thought. Even worse than confronting her father’s other family would be breaking this news to her mother, for Sabrina had no illusions about Isabel’s reaction. Her mother might not have loved her father the way Sabrina did, but she cared very much about her reputation. In fact, her standing in the town was probably the most important thing in her life. She would be devastated.
I am so sorry for the hurt I know you are feeling. Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted to happen.
Although all Sabrina wanted to do was tear up the letter and put the whole nasty business out of her mind, she knew she couldn’t do that. Those two small children—her half brother and half sister—were blameless in this affair. And now that she was over the initial shock, she had to admit, she was curious. What kind of woman was this Glynnis? Young and sexy, Sabrina imagined in disgust. Probably a curvy blonde with a Marilyn Monroe voice.
Daddy, how could you do this to us?
The pain she’d tried to quell hit her then, so swift and hard it was like a kick in the stomach. Her father said he loved her, but if he’d really loved her, he could not have done this awful thing. Marrying this, this Glynnis person, was a betrayal of everything he’d stood for.
Blindly she shoved the envelope into her handbag and stood. As she started on the path leading to the parking lot and her car, clouds moved across the sun, plunging the afternoon into darkness.
A darkness that was echoed in her heart.
Sabrina drove straight back to Leland Fox’s office. She could see by the expression on his face that he had known the contents of the letter.
“How long have you known?” she asked.
“About six months.”
Sabrina couldn’t imagine why he had kept her father’s secret. Leland and Isabel had grown up together. He had always been more her friend than Ben’s. You’d think he’d have felt more loyalty toward her. She glared at him. But as quickly as her anger had come, it disappeared. None of this was Leland’s fault.
“What are you going to do?” he asked. His eyes were kind.
“I guess I have no choice. I’ll have to go see this woman and tell her about Dad’s death.”
He nodded sympathetically. “When you return, I’ll help you break the news to your mother.”
“You think I should wait before telling her?”
“There’s no hurry, is there?”
Sabrina looked down at her lap. Leland was right. There was no hurry. Nothing would change whether she told her mother today or two weeks from now. In fact, it would be easier to wait until her mother was feeling stronger and over the shock of her father’s death. She looked up, meeting Leland’s eyes. “No, there’s no hurry. And I’d be grateful for your help when I tell my mother.”
Because she needed some time before facing her mother, Sabrina stopped at the office of The Rockwell Record on the way home.
Johnny Fiore, the sports editor who also handled school news and obituaries, looked up from his desk as she entered the newsroom. “Sabrina, how are you?” He stood up to give her a hug.
“I’m okay.”
“We didn’t expect you back till next week.”
“I’m not here to work. I just stopped in to see how everything’s going.”
“She thinks we can’t do without her,” Kelsey Finnegan, the lifestyle/society/entertainment editor said, grinning at Sabrina.
“We can’t. Things are falling apart without you here.” This came from Vicki Barrows, the office manager/bookkeeper.
Sabrina smiled. She knew they were trying to lift her spirits, and for a moment, they had. “I just want to take a look at my calendar, then I’ve got to go, but I’ll be here on Monday.”
As she sat at her desk surrounded by familiar things, she felt herself growing calmer. Because she’d said she was going to, she checked her calendar and saw that she’d set up an appointment with one of their suppliers for the next morning. She buzzed for Vicki. “You’ll have to cancel tomorrow’s appointment with Jake Evans. Tell him I’ll call him to reschedule next week.”
“Will do. Anything else?”
“Maybe you could ask Bert to cover the city council meeting.” The Rockwell political scene was an area Sabrina had refused to give up, even as managerial responsibilities had pushed aside all other reporting duties.
“Sure thing.”
“How’s the ad count look?” Like most newspapers, advertising revenue dictated The Record’s size and provided most of its operating funds.
“As of the same date last year, we’re up twenty-two percent.”
Sabrina felt a surge of pride. They were having a banner year, due in large part to the hard work of Jan Kellogg, the new advertising manager Sabrina had hired in March.
Once all work-related details were taken care of, Sabrina logged on to the Internet and researched the town of Ivy, where Gregg Antonelli and his sister lived, and was pleased to discover a well-known chain motel located nearby. After making a reservation for the following night, Sabrina left the office and headed home.
On the way, all her worries came flooding back. How was she going to get through the rest of the day and all the ones to follow without raising her mother’s suspicions? Although, since her accident, Sabrina’s mother had been pretty self-involved, she was still fairly astute when it came to Sabrina and her emotions.
It was even harder than Sabrina had imagined to spend the afternoon and evening in her mother’s company without giving away her state of turmoil, but somehow she managed. She and her mother and aunt had lunch together, then Irene suggested Isabel might like to take a nap. “I know I would,” her aunt said.
To Sabrina’s relief, her mother agreed. While her mother
