you’ve noticed that there is a second letter, addressed to Anna. I am leaving it up to you to decide whether or not she would be better off knowing. Knowing what, you may ask. Or perhaps, since you were always so bright, so intuitive, you already know. Your mother always suspected but never asked. I think she was afraid of the truth.
Anna is not your adopted sister, she is your half sister. Her mother was an E.R. nurse who was very kind to me during that period when your mother and I were having such a difficult time together. You were nine at the time so perhaps you don’t remember. Your mother had been suffering from depression, and had retreated to her own world. A world she later emerged from, thank God. But while it was happening, it was terrible for both of us.
I had my work, and you boys, but I felt lost and, in a moment of weakness, I gave in and accepted the comfort of another woman. Anna is the result of that single liaison. Her mother, Monica, knew she wasn’t going to be able to raise her and give her the things she would need to succeed in this life so she gave her up. We agreed that she would leave the baby on the steps of the hospital and that I would “find” her there.
Not long afterward, Monica died in a plane crash. I’ve debated taking this secret to my grave, but part of me felt that Anna should know the truth. That she was always my daughter—and your sibling—in every way. However, if you think that she would be better off not knowing, then burn this letter, and hers as well.
Please don’t think any less of me because of my transgression. I am still your father and I love each of you—and your late mother—very much.
Forgive me,
Your loving father, James.”
Peter sat, holding the letter in his hands and staring at it, his mind completely numb, for a very long time.
Chapter Ten
Peter wasn’t sure exactly how long he sat there. When he finally managed to rouse himself, he felt the bitter taste of betrayal in his mouth as he slowly tucked the letter and the other envelope back inside the original one.
Taking a breath, he could feel, awakening inside him, a whole host of emotions warring with one another. Most prominent of all was disappointment, mixed with confusion.
He wished he’d never read the letter, had never been given this burden to deal with.
Never been robbed.
Because that was what it was—robbery, pure and simple. His father’s confession had robbed him of the image that, until this evening, he had carried around with him.
Yes, he knew the man was not a saint, that he was flesh and blood and human, capable of making mistakes. But he’d always assumed that those mistakes would be tied in with judgment calls about his patients. Maybe an occasional failure to diagnose a particularly elusive illness properly.
Never in his wildest dreams would he have believed that his father would be guilty of personal misconduct. He would have gone so far as to swear on a stack of Bibles that his father had never strayed, never cheated on his mother, never been anything but loyal and faithful to everyone he knew, especially to the people in his immediate family.
Instead, James Wilder had betrayed his wife and, in a way, Anna.
No—all of them, Peter thought, trying in vain to bank down the hurt he felt.
This showed him another side to his father, a far more human side than he was willing to cope with at the moment. If his father had done something like this, had hidden a secret of this magnitude, were there other secrets that James Wilder hadn’t admitted to?
Here he was, trying to preserve his father’s legacy and maybe it was all just a huge sham, illusions created by smoke and mirrors to hide the actual man.
Maybe he really didn’t know his father at all.
Who knew, maybe his father would have jumped at the opportunity to have the hospital taken over by an HMO, to have someone pocket all the expenses, pay for everything and ultimately remove the responsibility for judgment calls from his hands.
Maybe …
No. Discovering that his father had had a relationship—and a child—with another woman while married to his mother, didn’t change the things that mattered. The basic things. And it sure as hell didn’t change the man that he was, Peter thought angrily.
He hadn’t based his feelings, his position, on the fact that his father would have done it this way. That his father would have approved of the stand he was taking. Believing that had only served as reinforcement. He, Dr. Peter Wilder, believed in what he’d said to Bethany and to the board. Believed that, when it came to the hospital, the old ways were the best and that Walnut River General would be much better off not being swallowed up whole by a soulless, unemotional conglomerate, no matter what kind of promises were made.
Rising to his feet, he sighed heavily and shook his head. He felt drained and exhausted beyond words.
Peter put the envelope back on the mantelpiece, not wanting to touch it any more right now. Wishing he could wipe its existence from his mind. But he wouldn’t be able to do that, even if he threw his letter and Anna’s into the fire.
“I wish you hadn’t told me this, Dad. I wish you hadn’t passed the burden on to me,” he whispered, aching.
Everything fell into place now. It all made sense to him.
This was why his father always seemed to go out of his way for Anna, treat her differently, share more time with her than he did with the rest of them. It wasn’t because he was trying to make up for her feeling like an outsider. He was doing it because he’d felt guilty about her very existence. Guiltier still because he didn’t tell her she was his real daughter. He had let her go on thinking she’d been abandoned when just the reverse was true. She could have been put up for adoption. Instead, he’d taken her into his family rather than let her go to someone else’s—and have the secret go with her.
His first instinct was to preserve his father’s memory for the others. Because this didn’t just affect Anna, but David and Ella as well. It was a package deal. If he passed this letter on to Anna, once she read it, the others needed to know, too. They needed to know that the family dynamics had changed.
No, Peter thought as he walked up the stairs to his bedroom, that was for Anna to decide. If he told her, it would be her secret to share or keep.
He laughed shortly. Who would have ever thought that he would be aligning himself with Anna against his brother and sister?
An ironic smile curved his mouth. That wasn’t altogether right now, was it? Anna was his sister, too.
His sister. His real sister.
Well, that explained why she seemed to have his father’s eyes. Because they were his father’s eyes.
Just when he thought there were no surprises left, he mused, shaking his head sadly.
The letter was no longer on his mantelpiece.
Early this morning, he’d gotten up and decided to leave the thick envelope in his study, in the middle drawer of his desk until he decided what to do with it.
Meanwhile,
