Chapter Thirty-Two
When Kit saw Hal Anderson’s vehicle pull into the parking lot late in the morning, her stomach sank and the void that had opened in her chest widened.
She knew instinctively why he was there, and wished she had another day of not knowing for certain.
When there was still doubt, she could pretend that her world was not about to change.
She went out onto the front porch to wait for him, noting that his pace wasn’t as crisp as it had been the last time she’d seen him, as if he wanted to let her avoid facing a truth that was sure to go down hard.
“I heard you bailed my daughter out of a DUI last night,” she said as he came up the steps. “Thank you.”
“She and Elly forgot how to count, apparently. Lots of local boys vying for their attention, Abby being new in town and Elly that rare bird, a local who’s almost never seen in the wild.
Too much celebrating the reopening of the camp.
It was just luck that I was in the parking lot settling a dispute when the two of them decided to flip a coin to see who was going to drive home.
” He smiled at Kit. “Needless to say, I won the toss.”
“Well, I’m grateful, and I know Abby was as well.”
“How’s she feeling this morning?”
“Probably the way she should feel after a night like that. She’s not up yet. I’m guessing it’s going to be a while before she does that again. If ever.”
“Another life lesson learned.”
“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” she said in an attempt to add a nonchalant air to his visit.
“I’m afraid not. I just wanted to come out to give you the results of Beth’s DNA testing.”
Kit took a deep breath. “We didn’t match as siblings, did we?”
“I’m afraid not, no.”
“Cousins, then?”
“First cousins, the lab said.”
“So one of us was Maxine’s and one of us was my . . . our . . . Barbie’s.” Kit nodded slowly. “I’m pretty sure I know who’s who.”
“I wouldn’t want to speculate, and I’m not sure how you’re going to be able to find out for sure.”
“I know who to ask.” She looked out over the lake and watched a heron glide to the shore. “Thank you, Hal. I appreciate you driving out here to let me know. I’ll take it from here.”
By the time she and Benny walked Wally, it was forty minutes before Kit left the house to drive into Tolerance. She felt a calm she hadn’t felt in weeks. Suspecting was one thing; knowing was something else. All she needed was Banks’s confirmation in order to be one hundred percent certain.
The missing pieces were the why and the how, and she knew that he was the only living person who could tell her.
“Is your dad in?” she asked Caroline when she walked into the law office, not bothering with a greeting or any pleasantry.
Caroline studied Kit’s expression. “Let me see if he has time to see you, Kit.”
“Send her in,” he bellowed from his office. “Of course I have time.”
Kit went inside and closed the door behind her. “You’ve been scarce these past few days.”
“I was busy. I do have other clients,” he told her. “Sit.”
She was already seated.
“Maxine was my mother.” Kit wasted no time in getting to the heart of her visit.
Banks nodded and sat back in his chair. “She was.”
“Was Miles Easton my father?”
“Of course he was. Maxine never had time for anyone but Miles. She loved him deeply, as he loved her.”
“The baby in the blanket chest.”
Another nod. “He was their son. Premature and stillborn.”
“Was he born in the house?”
“In their cabin. As she related it to me, it was a spontaneous birth. It happened quickly and unexpectedly, and she’d been despondent, hysterical. She stayed in the cabin with him—the child—for days, never telling anyone except Barbie.”
“Didn’t her parents think it was a little odd?”
“It wasn’t unusual for her to stay in the cabin, so her parents didn’t think that was strange, but Barbie told them Maxine had the flu.”
“How did the baby end up in the blanket chest?” Words Kit never thought she’d hear herself speak.
“Barbie tried to talk Maxine into burying him, said she’d offered to help, but she said Maxine had screamed at her and locked herself in the cabin.
She kept that baby wrapped in one of Miles’s T-shirts for days, and when it became apparent that she had to leave it—bodies do begin to reek after a bit, you know—she put him in a suitcase and locked the cabin door. ”
“She told you this?”
“She did, but I’d already heard it from Barbie. She said Maxine kept pretty much to herself after that, until Miles arrived a few months later. Apparently she hadn’t told him about the child, and by then, she’d moved the suitcase into the house and kept it under her bed.”
“Oh, dear God.” Kit covered her face with her hands. “Didn’t her parents wonder what had happened to the baby she’d been carrying?”
“Maxine never looked pregnant. She was one of those women who just never showed until she got close to the end. No one knew she’d been pregnant. No one knew she’d given birth.”
“But why wouldn’t she have told Miles? That doesn’t make sense. Surely she must have realized he had a right to know.”
“I asked her that. She said when she first found out she was pregnant, she wanted to wait until he was there at camp with her to tell him. After she lost the baby, she was afraid he’d think she must have done something to have made it happen, and she didn’t want him to hate her for not being able to carry their son to term. ”
“How far along was she when she miscarried?”
“She’d calculated seven months. Not having had any prenatal care, she wasn’t sure, but that was her best guess.”
“How could someone as smart as she was be so careless about not going to the doctor when she realized she was pregnant?”
“You didn’t know Maxine. When she was set on something, nothing could sway her mind. She didn’t want her parents to be embarrassed that she wasn’t married. She said she did a lot of reading and felt she and the baby would be fine.”
“Until it wasn’t.” Kit was trying hard not to judge Maxine—she couldn’t bring herself to say her mother—but it was getting increasingly difficult. “As smart as she was, she didn’t know it wasn’t her fault? That many pregnancies end in miscarriage for which there’s no discernible reason.”
“I think her emotions were stronger than her common sense where Miles was concerned. She loved him so completely, she couldn’t face him thinking less of her.”
“But surely he wouldn’t have.”
“I’m sure you’re right, but there was no reasoning with her.” Banks cleared his throat and called Caroline to ask her to bring in two bottles of water. “She did eventually tell him, though.” He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long drink. “When she found out she was pregnant with you.”
“Did he ask to see the baby’s grave?”
“I don’t know what she told him.”
“Is that when Miles asked her to marry him?”
Banks nodded. “She said he was over the moon when she told him about the baby. About you. He couldn’t wait to get married and have a family with her.
He was going to move out here from Chicago, but then her parents died in that car accident, and they went into mourning.
Barbie said it hit Maxine particularly hard because she felt so guilty about never telling them about the baby that she lost. As the months went on, that weighed heavily on her mind, but she’d thought it was too late to tell them the truth, and then they died, and it was too late. ”
“Poor Maxine. I know my mom—I mean, Barbie, of course—said she’d had a hard time when her parents died.”
“They did. After their deaths, Barbie helped Maxine close up the camp—there were reservations to cancel—and they scaled back the plans for Maxine’s wedding.
Miles was on the last leg of his first real multicity book tour, and he was going to return to Chicago, pack up his belongings, and fly here for the wedding.
” Banks looked across the desk and made eye contact with Kit. “And of course, he never made it.”
“She must have been crushed.”
“She fell apart. Totally lost it. Barbie and Ed were terrified she’d try to kill herself. Barbie moved in with her for months to make sure she didn’t harm herself.”
“And then I was born.”
“It had been a long six months, Kit. Maxine wouldn’t go to the hospital, wouldn’t let Barbie call a midwife. She holed herself up in that cabin and tried to deliver you herself.”
“Oh God. How was I even born alive?”
“Your mother delivered you. Barbie, who couldn’t stand the sight of blood, who had absolutely no idea what she was doing, went into that cabin and talked her sister through your birth.”
Kit couldn’t hold back the tears. She’d always known her mother to be a woman of great resolve, but she’d never known just how strong she was. Even now, knowing what she knew, she couldn’t refer to anyone other than Barbie as her mother.
“Maxine couldn’t bear to look at you, once you were born. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have put it that way. She was devastated, to put it mildly.”
“No offense taken. But I’d have thought she’d have wanted that last bit of Miles.”
“You would have thought. Barbie took you up to the house and mothered you. She and Ed had been having trouble conceiving and they desperately wanted a child. And here her sister had this beautiful baby that she didn’t want, so—”
“So my mom—Barbie—asked Maxine if she could take me.”
Banks nodded. “She’d have taken you even if Maxine had balked.
Your mother and father could see Maxine was in no frame of mind to raise a baby.
They were afraid for your safety, frankly.
So Barbie told Maxine they would take you and raise you, and Maxine agreed.
But then Ed, sensing how unstable Maxine was, wanted a legal agreement. ”
“They came to you.”