“I don’t need money,” she said. “I just have to talk to you.”
“About what? You know, this all seems rather ominous.”
Taking a deep breath… she looked up.
Her first thought was that Randolph Chance Early III had aged. The full head of salt-and-pepper gray hair was now far more salt than pepper, and there were new wrinkles around his watery blue eyes. Other than that, the physical impression he made was all as she remembered. The lips were still thin, testimony to the man’s predilection for self-control, order, and the absolute denial of any passion, anywhere, and the clothes were the same, the navy-blue blazer, gray wool slacks, white button-down, and club tie the kind of thing he surely had come out of the womb wearing.
Her second thought was that her father was less scary than she had always made him out to be. It was amazing how being financially independent made her feel taller than the five-year-old she reverted to every time she set foot in this house. Not that she was rich, by any means. But she was surviving, on her own, and no amount of disinterest or disapproval from him or anyone else could diminish that.
Unzipping her backpack, she took out the manila folder she’d taken from her kitchen drawer. Opening the front cover, she slid free the black-and-white photograph of Dr. Manuel Manello and placed it on the glass.
“Do you know this man?” she asked as she spun the image around and pushed it across the smooth surface.
Her father dabbed his lips even though he hadn’t taken a sip of coffee or a spoonful of grapefruit or any of that egg. Then he leaned in, holding his tie in place though there was nothing for it to brush into.
On the far side of the flap door that the servants used, subtle sounds of a kitchen in full swing percolated, filling the silence. And as Jo’s anxiety rose, she clung to the soft voices. The chopping. The occasional scrape of metal on metal, a pan dragged across the sixteen-burner stovetop.
“No, I do not.” Her father looked up. “What’s this about?”
Jo tried to find a perfect combination of words to explain herself, but realized that there really wasn’t one. Besides, what exactly was she protecting him from?
Maybe it was more like she was looking for the combination to unlock her past in the syllables she could shift around.
“He’s supposedly my brother.”
Chance Early frowned. “That’s impossible. Your mother and I only adopted you.”
Jo opened her mouth. Closed it. Took a deep breath. “No, he’s supposedly related to me by blood.”
“Oh.” Her father straightened in his chair. “Well, I’m sorry, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. Your adoption was a closed one. We have no records on the woman who birthed you.”
“Do you remember the name of the agency you used?”
“It was through the Catholic Church. The local diocese here. But I am sure it’s been shuttered for years. How do you know he’s a relation?”
“I have a friend of mine who is a reporter. He worked back from the hospital I’d been born in. Talking to people there, he discovered that my mother had been given a pseudonym, and that someone with that same name had also given birth to this man, who had been adopted. His name is Dr. Manuel Manello.”
“So you already know the story. Why do you need to question me about it?”
Jo moved her eyes to the windows. Outside, in the cold, a man in a dark green landscaper’s outfit strode into view with a hoe.
“I just thought that perhaps you or Mother might recall something.”
Her father picked up the silver teaspoon by his knife. Digging into the grapefruit, he frowned again as he put a piece in his mouth.
“I’m afraid the answer is no. And why do you want to look into all this?”
Jo blinked. “It’s my history.”
“But it doesn’t matter.”
She refocused on the gardener. “It does to me.”
When she went to get up, he said, “You’re leaving?”
“I think it’s for the best.”
“Well.” Her father patted his mouth with that napkin. “As you wish. But do you have any message for your mother?”
“No, I don’t.” At least not her adoptive mother. “Thank you.”
As she took the photograph back, she had no idea what she was thanking him for. The fact that she had made it to maturity still alive? That was about it.
Returning the folder to her backpack, she re-zipped things, nodded, and turned away. Walking out through the dining room,