Letter Twelve #2
So you told me the story of how you found out you were adopted after your mother died.
Your adoptive father finally told you the truth, handing over two pieces of evidence as proof: your birth certificate, which listed Boston as your place of birth, and a letter from my grandmother, addressed to your adoptive mom.
In the letter, Eleanor expressed what a pleasure it was for her to carry you, at only a few days old, over the Atlantic to your new family. She said you were perfectly behaved on the six-and-a-half-hour flight, that she’d never met a baby more angelic than you.
“Eleanor wrote these things?” I asked, mouth agape. “That doesn’t sound like her at all. I’m pretty sure she hates babies.”
You stood, crossed to your closet, and grabbed something out of a pair of pants in there. You handed me these ratty, folded-up sheets of paper. When I unfolded them, I instantly recognized Eleanor’s cursive handwriting, along with her unique signature scrawled at the bottom of the last sheet.
Eleanor stressed the importance of keeping your true parentage a secret, urging your mother not to tell you about her personal involvement in arranging the adoption, either.
At the end of the letter, Eleanor said she hoped you’d be very happy, then told your mother to destroy the letter and never to contact her again.
But you weren’t willing to accept that. You wanted answers, and a quick Google search yielded plenty of results on the Bancrofts.
You saw pictures of Eleanor with my grandfather, pictures of my dad, even pictures of me. And you also noticed this: wherever the Bancrofts were, the Harrises were, too. From what you could tell, our families were inextricably linked.
You found a small piece written about Michael—headed to Libby’s alma mater, going the political route like his parents and all the Harrises before him. You guessed you and Michael were about the same age, so he became your ticket in. A way to get close to my family. A way to get close to my dad.
“You thought my dad was your biological father.”
“I did,” you said. “I saw a picture of you and thought we looked similar enough that I could be your brother—and Nic did, too, once I told him who I was and why I came here. For a long time, we both believed I might be his.”
It made sense. Like you, my dad had dark hair, he was extremely handsome, and you were about the same height.
“Why didn’t my dad just…ask Eleanor?”
“He didn’t like the tone of her letter to my mum, how it seemed like she wanted to keep me hidden. He didn’t want to involve Eleanor until he figured out the truth for himself.”
“But she’s the one who delivered you to your new family. Don’t you think she probably recognized your name when she first met you?”
“Eleanor never mentions my name in the letter, so maybe she didn’t know what they called me. And I have my dad’s surname, not my mum’s. My mum never took his name.”
I flashed back to that cryptic thing Eleanor had said the night we met: Want to know the tricky thing about secrets?
No matter how deep you think you’ve buried them, they always find a way of rising back to the surface.
Also, her uncharacteristic display of emotion every time you mentioned your mother had been suspect.
“I think she knows,” I said.
You winced. “I think she does, too. Sometimes? When we’re having tea together?
She says my name all serious right before she gives me this look.
And I just know she’s finally going to say it: Casey, I know who you are.
But she ends up saying something completely ordinary instead.
Like, ‘You’ve worked wonders on our Elliot. ’”
My head snapped back. “Are you serious? Eleanor said that to you?”
“Yes. Right before we left for the beach. And I said, ‘Well, I appreciate that, Eleanor. I do try.’ And she said, ‘Honestly, Casey. You might be the best thing that’s ever happened to my granddaughter. I shudder to think where she might be if you hadn’t come along.
’ And that just”—you clasped a hand over your heart—“hits me right here, you know? That I might be a positive influence in your life? That I might even be…helping you?”
I laughed darkly. Bit my tongue. Recrossed my legs. “So anyway,” I said, trying to compose myself, “back to the story. That day after brunch? When my dad stopped you from leaving with Michael and took you to his office? That’s when he figured out something was off with you, right?”
“Yes. He demanded I tell him what my business with Michael was. He wanted to know why I’d been lying to everyone the whole time.”
“Lying about what?”
“Being waitlisted at Harvard,” you said. “I was never waitlisted there. That’s how your dad caught me out. He’d contacted someone in the admissions department, and they had no record of me of ever applying.”
My mind raced. “But you did tour Harvard, right? Isn’t that how you met Sienna?”
That’s when you sighed and told me another story: how, for hours each day, you lingered around Harvard Yard—leaning against a tree, sitting on the steps of Widener Library, pretending to read on a bench—and scoped the place out, watching for Michael.
You watched him walk to class, watched him sit outside the library steps and scroll through his phone, watched him talk to people—trying to work up the courage to approach him yourself.
One day, Sienna noticed you sitting on the library steps and struck up a conversation. She invited you to a party on campus, and you went. When you asked her if she knew Michael Harris, she said, “Everyone knows who Michael Harris is. His family’s practically royalty around here.”
Before long, the two of you started hanging out and became friends.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “Hanging out? Is that a euphemism for hooking up? As in, you were sleeping with her? Before she started dating Michael?”
You dropped your gaze to the floor. Wiped a hand over the lower half of your face. Behind your fingers, you quietly said, “Yes.”
“Let’s see if I remember this correctly,” I said. “You’re the one who told her to ask Michael out. So she did. Then she introduced him to you. Does that mean she acted as your co-conspirator in all this? Does that mean she started dating Michael to help you get close to my dad?”
You nodded, eyes closed.
“Oh my God. You could’ve befriended Michael on your own—or, I don’t know, approached my dad on the street. But no. You involved that bitch in some manipulative scheme to infiltrate our lives.”
You grimaced, your hand tossed out. “Listen, I’m not proud of it.”
“I can’t believe you,” I said, pushing myself up from the bed. “You and that stupid bitch. No wonder she shut her mouth when you said enough. No wonder she acted like your girlfriend as much as she did Michael’s.”
Something had always seemed off with Sienna. I’d sensed it the first time Michael had introduced her to me.
You grabbed my wrist. “Don’t look at me like that, Wednesday,” you said, gently tugging me back. “I hate how I schemed my way into your lives—especially Michael’s. Believe me, I regret all of it. I wish I’d never involved her.”
“Were you still sleeping with her while she dated Michael?”
“Of course not. Once she started seeing him, I didn’t touch her at all. I swear it.”
I tried not to be persuaded by your grip on my wrist. Or the feel of your other hand as it moved up my arm. Or the way you gazed up at me, desperate and pleading, as you anchored me in place. “Does my dad know this? Know about Sienna’s involvement, too?”
“He knows everything. But Sienna doesn’t—she has no idea what I’ve just found out. If she asks for an update, I’ll tell her Nic isn’t my father, but I have no intention of ever telling her the truth. I can’t risk it. I don’t trust her.”
That’s what pulled me back from the edge, Casey. Not your grip. Not the words. The fact you were choosing to trust me over her.
“When did you find out you definitely weren’t my dad’s?” I asked.
You breathed a sigh of relief as I lowered myself to the bed again. “Right before my birthday. Nic did a paternity test, and the results showed we weren’t related.”
“I don’t understand. By that time, you’d been here for over six months. Why did he wait so long to do the test?”
“Because, for the longest time, he kept trying to get a clear answer from”—you paused here, hesitating—“your mother.”
My heart skipped. “He talked to my mom?”
You took a deep breath. “He wanted to know if she’d had a baby without telling him. She disappeared during his second year at uni, so the timing fit—she’d have been gone for the last half of a pregnancy, and for months after I was born. She didn’t show up again until Nic’s third year.”
He talked to my mom. Feeling stunned and confused, all I could manage to say was, “And she…wouldn’t give him a clear answer?”
“He said she kept toying with him. She’d say yes one day and no the next.
Then she’d say if she’d had a baby, how could he know for sure it was his?
He said she was like that. She liked to fuck with him.
It was fun for her. Finally, he got a DNA sample from you and compared our samples to see if we were siblings.
He got the results back at the same time as the paternity test. You and I weren’t related, either, so there’s no way she could’ve been my biological mother. ”
I still couldn’t believe it. Nic had been in contact with my mom. For months. But the other thing that surprised me? She liked to mess with people, too.
“What do you mean he got a DNA sample from me? How’d he do that without me knowing?”
“He had me take your toothbrush one day while you were at school and replace it with one that looked exactly the same.”
“Well, what about John? Did John give him a sample?”
“Um,” you said, hesitating again. “John doesn’t know any of this. Nic took samples from him and Michael while we were all at the beach.”
“Their toothbrushes, too?”
You nodded.
“Wow. My dad’s sneaky as shit.”
You smiled at me. “Yes. I see now where you get it from.”
I smiled back, knocking your arm with mine.