through the spotless kitchen and onto the wooden rear deck, he found his daughter’s twin sister’s mother already there with two porcelain mugs of coffee on a tray, some milk in sippy cups for the girls, and a plate of dainty cookies arranged on a paper lace doily.
Their cue for some polite, meaningless conversation?
Not on Ms. McGraw’s agenda, apparently. He was surprised at the determined look which had appeared on her pretty face, but it gave him a brief warning of her intentions and left him a little better prepared. Almost relieved, too. Whatever she wanted, he would much prefer it if she went after it openly and honestly, if she said what was on her mind so that they both knew where they stood.
“I don’t want to pursue this through official channels,” she said. Her voice started out wobbly and ended up firm.
“Pursue what?” he asked, betraying his impatience, and his ill ease. “The question of whether the girls are twins? Isn’t it obvious, after one glance, that they are? The blood tests are only going to confirm it.”
“Yes, it’s—” she took a deep breath, and tried to smile “—uncannily obvious.” The smile wobbled and fell off her face, like a loose wheel falling off a toy cart. “I never imagined that they could look so much alike, even when I considered that you might be right. When I first saw your daughter, I wanted to snatch her right out of your arms.” Her voice dropped to a husky whisper.
“I know the feeling,” he drawled.
She pulled herself together, and her voice firmed. “No, I just meant that I don’t want to tell anyone about it. Not Immigration or the adoption people.”
“I don’t think it would invalidate the adoptions, Ms. McGraw. I can’t see how it could.”
“Please, call me Libby.”
“Okay. Libby.” He tried it out on his tongue, but couldn’t decide if he liked it. On the one hand, it was a snappy little nickname, and an inventive way to contract the more formal Lisa-Belle. On the other, it was a little too cute. He wasn’t big on cute.
“I guess I’m just not prepared to take any kind of a chance on the adoptions,” she said. The fall air was crisp and cool, and she shivered a little as she spoke. On the grass in her yard, there was already a carpet of fallen yellow leaves. “If there was ever any risk that I might lose Colleen…”
“No one’s talking about either of us losing our daughters.” The very thought opened a pit of fear in his gut. “The adoptions were both done in full accordance with the…you know, you must have read the information about it…the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption,” he reminded her. “You know how strict Vietnam is on that issue, and the United States, too. Stacey and I wouldn’t have gotten involved with the idea if there’d been anything dodgy about it.”
“Me, neither.” She paused, then added gently, “I’m sorry, it must have been hard for you to lose your wife so soon after you’d both become parents at last.”
He nodded, and muttered something. He’d told her over the phone that he was widowed, that his wife’s death had been sudden and unexpected, the result of an accident. What he hadn’t told her was that the blood alcohol level of the man Stacey had been driving with—her lover—had been well over the legal limit at the time.
It wasn’t a piece of information he enjoyed sharing with strangers, and he definitely didn’t want this woman asking questions about the state of his marriage. If that led to any kind of doubt over his capability as a father…
Would he and Libby be able to remain strangers, though?
Looking covertly at her, he wondered about how she was situated. She’d lost her husband more than four years ago. Enough time to grieve, and for the memories to soften. In the dating department, she couldn’t be short of offers if she wanted them. Not a pretty woman like her, a woman who smelled like flowers and rain and springtime. Was there anyone else in her life whom he needed to consider?
And in Scarlett’s? What kind of a connection were they making this weekend? How should he respond to that immediate impulse to take Scarlett’s twin into his heart?
Shift over, Scarlett.
He knew he could love two daughters without being unfair to either of them. The girls could build a precious bond with each other, and his mom would adore another grandchild. But where did Lisa-Belle McGraw fit in?
“So what do you want to do?” he asked her. Despite the colorless phrasing, they both understood what an enormous question it was.
“Talk a little more, first, about what might have happened,” she answered, her voice still firm. “I need to get the dates straight. I just need to understand the history.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “You and your wife took Scarlett from the orphanage, when, exactly?”
“June twelfth.” He had the date down pat, like a birthday or an anniversary. Scarlett’s exact birth date wasn’t known. “Fifteen months ago.”
“I was there around ten weeks later. August twentieth. I was told Colleen had just been left on the veranda at night. Someone heard her cry at around midnight and went out and found her. No idea about either of her parents, except that her father, most likely, was white and her mother was probably mixed race. I’m thinking the mom would have been conceived back during the war…”
“Yes, in the sixties or early seventies.”
“…with an American GI father. But all of that’s just conjecture, based on the way she looks. The way they look,” she corrected herself quickly.
“We were told pretty much the same story,” Brady answered. “Whether the orphanage workers had any inkling the girls were sisters… Probably not, since they passed through the place at different times. I got the impression the orphanage gets its share of mixed-race babies.”
“Yes, so did I.”
“I’m guessing the mother kept one baby in the hope she could manage to raise it, then found after a couple of months that she couldn’t.”
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her. I try not to think about it. Maybe she felt better knowing that her baby would be going to a better life.”
“That’s what we told ourselves, also.”
“It was for the best, I’m sure of it.”
“And of course,” he went on, “by the time she brought Colleen in, the orphanage would have had other kids passing through, and staff coming and going, possibly. And anyhow, a baby changes so much in those first few months.”
“I guess that’s how it happened,” she agreed. “And that’s where I’m happy to leave it. Whatever the exact story is, it doesn’t change what we’re facing now.”
“No, I guess it doesn’t.”
Brady took a sip of his coffee, debating on whether to reach for a cookie as well. They looked melt-in-the-mouth good, but the way they were arranged on that doily made them seem as if they were only for show. He’d already ruined Lisa-Belle’s little soap arrangement in the powder room. Didn’t want to do the same with the cookies.
Instead of
