leave Bluestone but had never pictured herself running for her life.
Sadie leaned forward and hugged Olivia. “You take care of that baby of yours. And if you ever need anything from me, all you have to do is ask.”
A train whistle blew in the distance. “I’ll surely call on you.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
LIBBY
Tuesday, August 4, 2020
The Woodmont Estate
“How do you know so much about Sadie Thompson?” Libby asked.
“She was my mother,” Margaret said.
“Which means Malcolm Carter was your father.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?” Libby’s mind scrambled up her newly discovered family tree, trying to figure out where her family intersected with Colton’s. Thankfully, it went back three generations.
“Malcolm always walked with a limp after what Sadie did to him. But when he got out of the hospital, he never went after my grandmother or me. I didn’t know until years later that it was Miss Olivia who kept him away. She threatened to leave Edward if there were repercussions against my grandmother or me.”
“Is he still alive?”
“No, Malcolm Carter died in 2000. He married several times, had children by all his wives, but in the end died alone and broke in a nursing home.”
“Did you ever see Sadie again?” Libby asked.
“When I was thirteen. The sheriff had died, and Sadie Thompson had become a bit of a folk legend, so Miss Olivia must have decided it was safe to take me to New York. You see, Miss Olivia hired my grandmother as her baby’s nurse, and I spent many of my early years in the nursery with their son, Stuart. Then as we reached school age, Stuart went off to boarding school, and I went to public school and then later to work in the Carters’ kitchen.”
“You’ve been here ever since you were a baby?”
“Miss Olivia saved my mother, my grandmother, and me. And when it came time for my Ginger to go to school, Miss Olivia saw to it there was scholarship money that got her all the way through medical school. She did the same for Colton.”
“After all that, why didn’t she help Elaine?”
Margaret sighed. “Miss Olivia wanted Malcolm arrested for what he’d done to Sadie, but Dr. Carter covered for his cousin, so of course charges were never brought. After that she didn’t trust her husband. He made her life here difficult even after she helped Sadie. Publicly he was always attentive to her, but behind closed doors he was distant and cold.”
“They stayed married.”
“Because of Stuart. She was free to leave, as her husband often said, but Stuart would always remain with him. She couldn’t leave her son, so she stayed. From what I could see, they always lived separate lives. Miss Olivia focused on her son and her gardens, and Dr. Carter kept working at the hospital in Lynchburg until it closed in the seventies. To the day he died, he believed he was doing those women a service.”
“Miss Olivia protected Sadie but not Elaine.”
“She knew Dr. Carter would have shunned his Elaine and you. And she feared he would have made your lives as miserable as her own.”
“So where did Elaine go when she was pregnant? I know she was in New Jersey when I was born.”
“Elaine went to live with Sadie on the Jersey Shore.”
“Sadie?”
“Sadie rode the train to New Jersey when she left Virginia and found work in a wartime factory. In those days, they were hiring women because there was such a shortage of men. After the war, she went back to school, and though it took her nearly a decade, she earned her college degree. She became a teacher.”
“A teacher. Wow, that’s amazing. So Olivia must have kept up with Sadie?”
“Miss Olivia took the train to New York every summer and stayed for a week. I didn’t learn until later that Miss Olivia always saw Sadie on those visits. As I said, she took me on my first trip to New York when I was thirteen and introduced us.”
Libby wondered how the meeting between mother and daughter had gone, but Margaret did not offer, and she did not press. “Did Sadie ever marry?”
“She did. A real nice fellow named Arthur. They never had children, but they were dedicated to each other until his heart gave out a few years before she died.”
“Did she ever have any regrets about leaving you?”
Margaret stared out at the long driveway. “It was the best for both of us. I knew that as soon as I saw her, and she saw me. I know when she looked at