Chapter 10 - The Necklace Contains Claire’s Address
Vanessa surrendered the necklace.
Inside its locket was a folded strip of paper.
An address.
Bend, Oregon.
Vanessa admitted Claire mailed the necklace six months earlier.
That meant Claire was alive recently.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I went there.”
Daniel stared.
“You found her?”
Vanessa began crying.
“Yes.”
Claire was alive.
Fifty-two years old.
Living quietly under the name Claire Carter.
Vanessa had visited her.
Claire refused to return.
She had cancer.
The diagnosis was serious but treatable.
She did not want Sophie’s first knowledge of her biological mother to be
a hospital bed.
Daniel’s anger collapsed into something else.
“You saw my sister six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you walked back into this house and said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she begged me.”
Daniel looked toward Sophie.
Sophie was furious too.
“Everyone keeps saying they lied for me.”
Nobody answered.
She continued:
“Maybe stop deciding what I can handle.”
That sentence ended the argument.
Sophie chose to go to Oregon.
Daniel went.
Richard Walker went only after Sophie invited him.
May you like
Vanessa was not invited.
For once, she accepted the boundary.
