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, she paused in front of the portrait of her mother that hung over the sideboard. Mrs. Philomena “Phillie” Early was beautiful in the Grace Kelly kind of standard, a platinum blonde with cheekbones like a thoroughbred.
“Jo.”
She looked over her shoulder. Her father had come to stand in the archway of the breakfast room, his napkin in his hand, his thin fingers worrying the damask.
“Forgive me. I have always found that I handle this subject badly. One feels a sense of failure that one could not provide one’s wife with a child. I’m sure you understand this.”
“I’m sorry,” Jo said because she felt like she had to.
“I can give you the name of our attorney at the time. I don’t believe he is in practice anymore, but he must have known the real name of the woman as he processed the paperwork with the diocese.