I HELD MY BREATH WHILE I waited for Ursula to reply. She knew something about my parents. Why hadn’t she told me?
Deep creases formed in her brow. “Sloan, I do not know ze best way to tell you ziz. It happened a long, long time ago, you must understand. And zen, ze men, zey came and zey told me I must not ever speak of it again. I have held on to ziz story for so long I am not sure my memory of it is even correct.”
“Okay.”
“So many years have passed. I have zought many times about what to tell you zat I know, and zen I have stopped myself. Can you ever forgive me?” Her hands shook violently.
I placed my hands on top of hers to try and calm her. “Ursula, you don’t need to ask for forgiveness. I love you, and nothing can change that.” I wasn’t sure that was true. Until Ursula divulged what she knew about my parents, there was no way to know whether she had withheld the truth for good reasons. Still, I wanted to encourage her to continue. The suspense and knowledge that Ursula was involved in any small way was making my head spin.
“I love you, too, Sloan. Ziz is why I have never told you.” She squeezed my hands and then released her grip.
“Please, Ursula. I have to know,” I pleaded. My skin felt cold and clammy despite the fact that the kitchen was warm from bread baking in the oven and Ursula’s stew simmering on the stove.
“Ja. I know. It is time.” She clasped her hands together as they trembled. “You see, ziz was very early on, when we had only been in Leavenworth a short while. Der Keller had only been open for a few years. Otto and I, we worked around ze clock. We were at ze brewery day and night. Hans and Mac too. Zey grew up in ze pub. It was good, and it was bad. We never had a break. Der Keller, it was our life.”
I had heard versions of this story many times.
“Otto, he was very worried it was too much for ze boys. We came to America to give zem a good life, but if we were working all ze time, was zat good? We got a late start on our family. We were older zan many of ze parents of ze boys’ friends, and we were running a pub and trying to grow a business. Mac was going to start school, and we were worried zat we wouldn’t have enough time to help him with his schoolwork and care for Hans. Hans was very young, just in preschool. It was hard to manage ze brewery and care for ze boys.”
My beer had begun to go flat, but I sipped it anyway.
“Otto received a call from a man who wanted to buy Der Keller. He was from ze East Coast and looking to invest in ze very early craft beer craze zat was just beginning to happen here. He asked if he could come and spend a week here to see ze brewery, meet us, and discuss a deal.”
“You were going to sell Der Keller?” This was part of the story I had never heard.
“Ja. We came very, very close to selling.” She hung her head for a moment as if the memory was too painful to bear.
“I can’t believe it. I can’t imagine Leavenworth without you and Otto. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
Her shoulders hunched. “I will get to ziz. But first, I must tell you about ze visit. Ze man arrived vith his beautiful young sister and her daughter.” She raised her eyebrow and looked at me.
“You mean me?”
“Ja, I zink so. You are ze girl in ze picture you found. At least, I zink. I cannot be sure, but it must be you.”
“I don’t understand.”
She nodded. “I know, I vill continue. Ze man, his name was Forest. Ziz is what he told us, but we would come to learn zat he lied about many things.”
“He was my uncle?”
Ursula frowned. “He says zat ze woman, Marianne, was his sister, but Otto and I were not sure. Zey did not act like brother and sister.”
“What do you mean? Do you think they were together?”
“I do not know. Marianne, she was always timid around Forest. I wondered if she was scared of him, maybe.”
I tried to stay in the moment, but it was hard not to jump to conclusions. Was Forest my father? Why were they pretending to be brother and sister? And why was she afraid of him?
Ursula continued. “At first, we were excited. It seemed like Forest was impressed with Der Keller. He told us of his plans to expand ze brewery, hire more workers, distribute ze beer far away. At ziz time, we couldn’t have even imagined zat our beers could be sold in Spokane or Seattle, but Forest was sure zat we would become a national brand.”
“When was this?”
She looked to the ceiling for a moment. It was decorated with tin tiles. “Ziz would have been in ze 1970s, or maybe it was very early 1980s.”
That math worked. I would have been six in 1979.
“Otto and I could not believe our good fortune. We had never imagined zat someone might want to buy Der Keller. At ziz time, we only had three part-time staff to help with ze brewery and tend bar. It was much like ze size of Nitro.”
That wasn’t a surprise. When I used to give tours at Der Keller, my talk would always include a brief history on the brewery’s evolution. I would show beer enthusiasts photos of Der Keller’s first primitive equipment and tiny tasting room. Then I would take them through the bottling plant and finish each tour in the restaurant. Inevitably people would be awed by the brewery’s humble beginning compared with today.
“Forest made us an offer zat we couldn’t believe. Zat is when ze problems began. If it seems too good to be true, zen it probably is, ja?”
I nodded.
“Ja.” She shifted in her chair. I wondered if her hip was bothering her or if the memories were painful. “Otto did not trust Forest. He said from ze start zat he had a funny feeling about ze man, but we were new business owners and we were flattered zat he was interested in Der Keller and we had never seen ze kind of dollar signs on ze contract.”
I had no idea where she was going with this. How long had Alex, Hans, and Otto been in the workshop? I said a silent prayer, begging them not to interrupt the moment.
“We took ze paperwork to a lawyer, who said immediately it was no good.”
“No good how?”
“Forest was not who he claimed to be. He said zat he had many, many business investments, but our lawyer told us ziz was not true. Forest was trying to scam us. His contract was a fake. It would have signed Der Keller over to him for nothing. Our lawyer was sure zat he was trying to take advantage of ze fact zat we were immigrants. He reported Forest to ze authorities and told us not to say anything. Two days later, some FBI agents came to Leavenworth and arrested Forest. He had done ze same thing many times. He would take control of ze business, drain ze bank accounts, and disappear.”
“Ursula, I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.”
“Ja. It was embarrassing. Otto and I felt so stupid. How could we have trusted such a criminal, and why did we not trust our first instinct?”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“No, no, I do not blame myself any longer. I did for some years after, but zen I came to realize it was an important lesson for us. It made us stronger. It made us realize zat it was worth putting in ze long hours and work to make Der Keller ze best brewery it could be. I vonder if Forest had never come what might have happened. In some ways I must be grateful to him.”
Not many people would have shared Ursula’s perspective on narrowly missing being scammed out of a business and thousands of dollars. It was just like her to shift from anger to gratitude.
“How does this relate to me? What happened to Marianne?”
Ursula stared at her beer, which hadn’t been touched. “We did not spend very much time with Marianne and her daughter. Zey were very private, but we did have zem to dinner one night before we learned of Forest’s true colors. Ze girl—you—were very astute. You would watch everyone with such intensity. You were a quiet child, but so polite and so smart. Otto and I both commented on ziz. But when Forest was arrested, Marianne disappeared along vith you. Ze FBI men said it would be better if we never spoke of what had happened. It was strange, but at ze time, we were embarrassed, as I said, so we set it aside and didn’t worry about it. Zen, we met you at ze farmers’ market. You remember?”
I nodded. “Of course.”
“I recognized you immediately. Vell, I was not sure, but your eyes, zey were ze same. Otto too. We did not know what to do or say, and zen when we learned your story and how you had been abandoned, we wondered if maybe it was because of us. Did Marianne need to disappear because Forest was arrested? Is zat why she left you? We felt so terrible, but zen we were not sure. It was so long ago. Maybe we were wrong. Maybe it was our imagination. How could we know? We had only met ze girl for a few days, and she was so young, but yet you looked like Marianne. Could it be you?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“We did not know, but we decided we would adopt you. We would make you our own. We had always longed for a daughter, and we fell in love vith you instantly. So did Mac. But even if Mac had not, we still would have made you part of ziz family.”
My stomach swirled with anxiety. Otto and Ursula had known about my family the entire time I had known them? My God. How had they kept that from me?
Ursula must have sensed my discomfort. “We did not say anything because you were so clear about not wanting to look into your past when we met you. I asked you a number of times, do you remember?”
I nodded. That was true. Ursula had tried to get me to open up about my childhood and had often asked in the early years of knowing them whether I had any interest in trying to track down my birth parents.
“Otto and I agreed we would not say anything unless you were ze one who made ze choice to begin to search for ze truth.”
“But I did, just a few weeks ago, and you told me not to.”
“I know. I am sorry, Sloan. Please forgive me. I beg ziz of you. I did not know for sure if it was you until zat night at Nitro. When I saw ze picture on ze wall, I knew right away. I almost collapsed. I could not tell you. Not now, after all of ziz time has gone by. What would you do? What would you say? You are my daughter, and now you would hate me.” She buried her head in her hands as huge tears poured from her eyes.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t swallow. This wasn’t possible.
Her entire body shook with emotion. “I can never forgive myself. I should have said more long, long ago, but I did not. At first it was because I was not sure why ze FBI asked us never to mention Marianne to anyone. Could Marianne have been in some kind of trouble? Were zey protecting her? Would we put her in more danger? But, zen it became about you. I couldn’t let you go. I did not want to risk zat you would be so angry at me I might lose you forever. Can you understand?”
I tried to nod, but nothing felt real. My body had gone numb. I had loved Ursula more deeply than maybe anyone in my life. She was the only mother I had ever known. How could she have kept this from me? Her words were a blow. Maybe worse than when I’d caught Mac with a young woman not that much older than Kat. Ursula had known critical information about my past and had failed to share it with me. I couldn’t respond to her question because I wasn’t sure I could forgive her.