Sisters - By Patricia MacDonald Page 0,21

sat down. Garth perched uneasily on the edge of an ottoman.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Alex asked.

Elaine shook her head.

Garth said, ‘No, thanks.’

Alex sat down opposite them.

‘I hope we’re not interrupting,’ Elaine said.

‘No, I was just making a little dinner,’ said Alex. ‘All that anxiety. Makes you hungry.’

‘What anxiety?’ Elaine asked.

‘Meeting Dory,’ said Alex. ‘It was very . . . emotional.’

‘I imagine so,’ said Elaine.

Garth nodded, avoiding her gaze.

‘Look, I guess I owe you both an explanation,’ said Alex. ‘I did come by your house the other day. I talked to your upstairs neighbor.’

‘Yes, we heard,’ Elaine said in a chiding tone. ‘You told Chris that you’re my cousin. Why did you lie about that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alex. ‘I was trying to decide what to do. My attorney had located Dory for me, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to contact her. You see, my parents died recently and my mother left me a letter telling me that she’d given up a child for adoption, so I decided to look for her. I don’t know if Dory told you when you spoke to her . . .’

‘I didn’t speak to her. I don’t speak to her,’ said Elaine.

Alex looked at her, confused. ‘But you said that she told you . . .’

‘I said that she left a message on my phone. I don’t take her calls.’

‘You don’t?’ said Alex. She looked at the composed, attractive middle-aged woman sitting opposite her. Then she looked at Garth Colson. He sighed and shook his head.

Alex looked back at Elaine. Her posture was perfect and her grooming was careful. Alex thought of her own mother with her messy strawberry-blonde hair and her softly rounded, middle-aged frame. Her sympathetic gray eyes. Alex could not imagine any circumstance where her mother would not speak to her. She just couldn’t. ‘Ever?’

‘It’s better this way,’ said Garth.

Elaine’s gaze was inscrutable. ‘Dory left me a message as soon as she first got the letter from you, saying that you thought she was the child that your mother had given up.’

‘I’m sure that came as a shock,’ Alex said apologetically.

‘I was surprised,’ Elaine admitted.

‘Well, I’m glad you aren’t angry about it,’ said Alex cautiously, although the woman she was looking at seemed far from content.

‘As I said,’ Elaine continued, ‘I was surprised, but I tried to ignore it. Dory wanted me to supply some information. Obviously I wasn’t going to do that. And then today, she called me as soon as you left. I listened to that message several times. Dory sounded quite pleased about it. Very pleased, in fact. As if this were some sort of validation. Her long-lost sister going out of her way to find her. To visit her. She wanted to let me know about that right away.’ This last was said in an accusing tone.

‘Well, I hope she was glad that I came to see her,’ said Alex carefully. ‘It’s not every day you meet a sister you never knew you had.’

Garth shifted his weight on the ottoman. ‘We kind of thought that you might give up the idea of bonding with Dory when you found out she was in prison. When you found out why,’ he said.

‘I’ll admit it – I almost did,’ said Alex. ‘That’s why I came by your house. I guess I was hoping to talk to you about it. You know, to find out what you thought.’

‘So why did you just run off?’ Garth asked.

‘I didn’t run off,’ Alex protested. ‘It was just . . . incredibly awkward. I decided to go ahead and contact Dory. I realized that no one was going to talk me out of it. Despite what Dory had done, I was still curious to meet her.’

‘You should have talked to us first,’ said Elaine flatly.

Alex proceeded cautiously. ‘You don’t . . . approve?’

Elaine took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘Miss Woods.’

‘You can call me Alex.’

‘Alex, do you have any idea what Dory has put us through?’ Elaine asked.

‘Well, obviously, I know about what happened to . . . your other daughter.’

‘Her name was Lauren. She was a beautiful girl. A treasure,’ said Elaine, a slight tremor in her voice. ‘She was on the road to stardom.’

‘I’m sure she was,’ said Alex. ‘But it’s Dory that I’m related to.’

Elaine sighed and shook her head. ‘You look at Dory and you see this . . . sister that you didn’t know you had. Locked up in prison like some princess in a fairy tale.