Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I studied Harvey and Edgar sitting side by side on the leather sofa, facing the matching sofa Paige and I sat on. Harvey looked uncomfortable; Edgar, thoughtful, as if he was puzzling out the bits of information we’d given him to put together the picture. It wouldn’t take him long. I knew how Edgar’s mind worked. And he was sharp.
“You think Paul Williams is the man your mother left with?” His eyes shot to Harvey, seeking agreement.
Harvey let out a gusty sigh. “He might have been. I don’t ever recall them meeting, but he could have bumped into Sarah in the house, or even in town if that’s where he stayed. She was always so focused on you boys back then,” Harvey said, his eyes going from Griffen to me. “But she could have slipped away to see him.”
“And that’s why you’re here,” Edgar said to Paige, his eyes narrowing on her face as if assessing what kind of trouble she might cause.
I squeezed her hand in mine. Edgar could be intimidating, but I wouldn’t let him scare Paige off.
She nodded. “I found a trunk of his things after my mother passed. Inside, I found letters from Sarah,” she said, her voice calm but her fingers gripping mine so tightly I was sure her knuckles were white.
“Letters?” Harvey asked. “They wrote to each other?”
“She wrote to him,” Paige said. “And from the content of her letters, it seemed like there were probably letters back from him to her, but we haven’t found any.”
“You’ve been looking?” Harvey asked, his white brows drawing together.
“Of course,” I said, rubbing my thumb over the back of Paige’s hand.
“They left thirty-five years ago,” Edgar reminded me. “Is there a point? When was the last time you heard from your mother?”
“I stopped getting birthday postcards in my early twenties,” I said.
Griffen agreed. “Same for me. Not that there was much to them in the first place, but they were something.” Neither of us mentioned the handwriting issue, waiting, in unspoken agreement, to see what Harvey and Edgar knew before we told them everything.
“Were you surprised when she left?” Hope asked quietly, looking at her uncle.
Edgar shook his head, raising one eyebrow. “Surprise doesn’t cover it, Hope. Sarah was devoted to her sons,” he said with a glance at Griffen and then me. “I think it’s safe to say you two were her only joy. That she would leave her children for a man, even one she was in love with—I never would have thought.” He gave a half shrug of one shoulder. “People surprise you.”
Truer words had rarely been spoken. I knew people did all sorts of things I’d never expect. I thought of Cole Haywood. In a million years, in all of those meetings we had about getting me out of prison, it had never occurred to me that Cole was the one who put me there. I hadn’t known about Prentice’s affair with Cole’s beloved wife, or Prentice’s role in her death. So many things I hadn’t known and hadn’t seen coming.
Everyone kept saying my mother had been a devoted parent who never would have left Griffen or me.
“How do you know Sarah ran off with my father?” Paige asked slowly.
She spoke the words I didn’t want to think. Everyone looked at her in surprise.
“What do you mean?” Harvey asked.
“I mean, we know that they had some kind of relationship based on the letters and some other things we found. It seems fair to say they were in love, also based on the letters.” She looked at Griffen, who had more of a background in this kind of intrigue than anyone else in the room. “But we don’t actually know that they left together.”
She was right, and I felt like an idiot for not considering that myself. Everyone assumed they’d run off together because no one had heard from our parents since they disappeared. But what if they hadn’t run off? What if something had happened to them?
Paige and Griffen stared at one another until he asked, “How did your mother get the news? Did she ever tell you?”
“A letter,” Paige said. “She got a letter.”
“So, she didn’t hear directly from Paul that he was running off with our mother?” Griffen asked.
Paige shook her head slowly. “Not in person, not a phone call. I know because she was aggrieved at that part—not just that he’d left, but that he hadn’t bothered to tell her in person. How did you find out?” she asked, looking at Edgar and Harvey. “Who told you she ran off with another man?”
“Prentice,” Edgar said, and looked to Harvey, who nodded in agreement.
“Prentice said there was a big showdown,” Harvey added. “He said she told him she was leaving him, and he told her she’d never get the kids. And she said they’d see about that, and she stormed out with her suitcases.”