CHAPTER
Twenty-one

Outings that begin with a sullen grandmother and a Russian housekeeper cannot be expected to end well. Willow believed this maxim in theory. Yet that didn’t stop her from continually testing it in practice.

“The state of church music in this day and age deeply saddens me,” Grandma proclaimed. Her small frame was belted into the passenger seat of Willow’s Range Rover.

“Um-hmm,” Valentina murmured consolingly from the back seat.

“The great old hymns of our faith have stood for generations. Some were written by the likes of St. Francis of Assisi and Martin Luther. But are we singing them in our churches anymore?”

“Sometimes.” Willow injected a bright note into her voice.

“No, we are not,” Grandma answered. “Hymnals are being replaced by computer lyrics on awful electronic screens. Excellent classical music is being replaced with songs no one’s ever heard. We’re expected to sing a simple chorus over and over again ad nauseam in a monotone.” She sucked air disapprovingly through her lips.

“Mmm,” Valentina offered in sorrowful commiseration.

“They’ve done away with hymnals at four out of Merryweather’s five churches,” Grandma continued. “My own Grace Church is the only one that hasn’t fallen to temptation. Our building is one hundred years old, Willow! Imagine erecting a screen in such a beautiful sanctuary and expecting us to accept modern rock-and-roll tunes. I’ve already told the pastor that it’ll only happen over my dead body.”

“I’m sure he was thankful for the feedback.”

Grandma would be hosting her church’s knitting group at her house tomorrow. Apparently her friend June had been on deck to host, but when June had been stricken with a shingles flare-up, Grandma had felt duty-bound to offer her home as a substitute location. Last night she’d stopped by Bradfordwood and told the tale of woe to Willow and Britt. Britt had said with incredible acting skill and a tone ripe with regret, “I’d offer to make all the food for the get-together, but I wouldn’t want to constipate anyone.”

Thus, Willow and Valentina had ridden to Grandma’s rescue this afternoon to cook, clean, polish the silver, and set the table for tomorrow’s gathering. Now it was nearing dinnertime, and Willow had packed the two older women into her car. They needed food. But before they hit the Edge of the Woods Bakery and Tearoom, Grandma had insisted on one quick stop.

Willow pulled up in front of Nora’s Bookish Cottage. A new custom-painted dark-matte-gray Lincoln Navigator was already parked there. “It looks like Nora has company.”

“Her new boyfriend?” Grandma asked.

“I assume so.”

“Is he a Christian?”

“You know that he is. I’ve heard you ask this question of Nora at least twice.”

“I tend to doubt the salvation of good-looking men.”

Laughter burst from Willow. She went around and helped Grandma from the car. “God doesn’t look at the outside, remember? He looks at the heart.”

“Yes, but it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is handsome to enter the kingdom of God.”

The three of them made their way up the walkway. “It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” Willow corrected. “That’s what that verse says.”

“What’s true of rich men is doubly true of handsome men who are also rich. They’re prone to vanity and promiscuity and greed. It’s hard on me to have my granddaughter dating someone who looks like that.”

“He’s a national hero!” Willow opened the front door a crack and called, “Hello,” in a carrying voice. She wanted to give Nora and John plenty of warning should they be making out.

“Hello?” Nora called back.

“Grandma and Valentina and I stopped by because Grandma wants to give you something.” Willow led the older women toward the living room—

Her gait cut to a halt.

Nora and John were inside. Fine. As expected. But Corbin was with them, too. Corbin. The three of them were on their feet in front of the spots where they’d no doubt been sitting moments ago.

Corbin regarded her levelly, his features defensive. He had on track pants and a well-worn Nike T-shirt. He’d been wearing a suit the night of Grandma’s birthday, but today he looked like a man you could snuggle up with. Lay your head on. Watch a movie with while you both talked back to the screen and laughed and ate homemade nachos.

She’d once snuggled with him and laid her head on him and watched movies with him while eating nachos.

Seeing him was like a javelin to the chest.

“Hello.” Willow attempted to appear unbothered by the javelin.

John and Corbin greeted them and Nora came forward to give out hugs. She shot Willow a look of silent apology.

“Nora.” Grandma drew herself upright. “I’d like to give you this hymnal.” She handed Nora the book. “Soon the hymnal will be a thing of the past and all the beautiful, beautiful songs inside it will be forgotten and unappreciated. I hope I can trust you to keep this safe in your little library.”

“You can trust me to keep it safe.” Nora accepted the hymnal then motioned toward the living area. “Would you like to sit down? Can I get you anything?”

“No, no,” Grandma replied. “We’re on our way to the tearoom.”

“Valentina, can I get you anything?”

“I good, miss! Good.” Valentina’s circular face beamed.

“You’ve been helping Grandma get ready for tomorrow, right?” Nora asked Valentina. “That was nice of you and Willow.”

“Yes, yes. The weather so nice! Sunny!”

As usual, Valentina’s answers didn’t quite match up with their questions. Having a conversation with her could be like reading Alice in Wonderland. You were charmed, but you also couldn’t help but wonder if you might be on drugs.

Grandma, bolstered by the fresh audience, gave a repeat airing of her grievances against electronic screens and modern worship songs. The guys listened politely. Willow avoided looking at Corbin while trying not to look as if she was avoiding looking at Corbin.

Ever since she’d been confronted with him at Grandma’s party, he’d been hovering just beneath her thoughts. She kept shoving him away, yet he kept hovering. Several times she’d spotted him around town or on the road and been besieged by turmoil, only to realize whoever she’d spotted wasn’t Corbin after all. She hadn’t been sleeping as well as she normally did, either. And her typical calm felt just beyond the reach of her fingertips.

Willow allowed herself one cautious peek in his direction. His body was still as mercilessly fit as it had been when they’d been together. She’d always loved his body. She was tall, but he’d towered over her in the best way. Not too tall. Not too brawny. Just deliciously right.

To her everlasting shame, she found that she still loved his body.

She moved her attention from Corbin to Nora. Willow had been advising her sister to take things slow with John. It was a difficult balance beam to walk because she didn’t want to come across as meddlesome or bossy or pessimistic. However, she earnestly did want to impart to Nora the knowledge that experience had carved into her.

She and Corbin had not taken things slow. They’d only dated for a few months, but they’d been going at one hundred miles per hour the entire time. When you crashed into a wall going that speed, it hurt.

She didn’t want that for Nora. Nor did she want to stand here, her ex-boyfriend’s presence viscerally reminding her how alone and bitter she was while Nora and John broadcasted extreme happiness. She clearly wasn’t a good person, because she had an urge to grab her sister’s shoulders and inform her that her romance with John couldn’t possibly go anywhere so long as John had Corbin as a friend.

She felt as if she’d caught Nora red-handed being cordial to the enemy. Had Nora been hanging out with Corbin regularly and hiding it from her?

Mercifully, Grandma kept the visit short.

Back in the car, the road skimming beneath them and Willow’s emotions a lump in her throat, her phone chimed to signal a text.

At a stoplight, Willow checked it. From Nora. I’m really sorry about that. John and Corbin had been at the gym, and Corbin dropped John off here afterward.

Willow set the phone aside without replying.

“Is John’s tall friend a Christian?” Grandma asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It would definitely be easier for him to go through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of God.”

Nora arrived at The Grapevine ten minutes prior to John’s scheduled lunch with Sherry. His Suburban already waited in the parking lot, so she pulled in next to him. In under thirty seconds, she was out of her car, he was out of his, and he’d wrapped her in a hug.

He bent his head and pressed his face near where her shoulder met her neck. She could feel banked tension in his body. “Have you been here long?” she asked.

“A couple of minutes.”

“Have you seen anyone wearing a bright pink scarf enter the restaurant?”

“No. Either we arrived first or Sherry arrived very early.”

She leaned back to study his face. “How are you feeling?”

He shifted, interlacing his fingers at the small of her back. “I’m feeling like I can’t believe this is finally happening. All my life I’ve wondered about her.”

It was hard to imagine growing up with an empty box inside you that needed answers neither you nor your parents had access to. John had spent his whole life that way. For decades, it was what he’d known. And now—suddenly—he was going to meet the person who could give him those answers.

For John, today was like the metal piece that held up the center of a teeter-totter. Before, the teeter-totter had slanted down in one direction. After today, it would slant down in the opposite direction. Today was the fulcrum.

“Are you nervous?” Nora asked.

“Not really.”

She wished she could say the same. Her stomach had been jumpy all day because she so badly wanted this meeting to go well for him.

“I’m glad this isn’t going to drag out any longer,” he said. “I’m ready to get this done.”

“Understandable.” Delicately, she combed her fingers through the hair at the back of his neck, smoothing it into place. He’d worn a simple navy crewneck sweater and jeans with his Red Wing boots. His jaw was smooth and clean-shaven.

He always looked great, even without effort. But she could tell that he had put in effort today, which caused protectiveness of him to swell within her. John had once vanquished terrorists intent on killing him and the people he’d been guarding. She couldn’t even vanquish the to-be-read pile of books on her nightstand. It was ridiculous to feel protectively toward him. It was also unavoidable.

John had shown her Sherry’s emails. In writing, Sherry had come across as a careful, circumspect, gracious woman. Nora didn’t think Sherry had proposed today’s meeting for her own sake but for John’s, which said a lot about her generosity.

However, the fact that she’d written to John that “contact between us is difficult for me” concerned Nora. John had told Nora that he had no expectations for a future relationship between himself and Sherry. In this case, though, Nora’s book knowledge of the adoption triad—adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents—was a liability. She knew that a sense of rejection, of being unwanted, could plague adoptees. Especially male adoptees.

It sent a chill down her every time she entertained the possibility of Sherry unwittingly or wittingly making John feel unwanted. Like a boxer who’d recently taken a hard right to the chin, John was already staggering from the diagnosis concerning his vision. He needed time to regain his footing, not another hard right.

She held his face in her hands and kissed him.

He meant more to her than she’d yet been able to successfully articulate either to him or to herself. He was her boyfriend, but he’d also become one of her closest friends. Their relationship was the sweetest joy of her days. Her most precious possession. “What time is it?” she asked.

“It’s five till.” They stepped apart, hands still linked. She clicked her key fob once to lock her car, then again for good measure. Together, Nora and John walked toward the restaurant beneath a pale blue sky.

The Grapevine was the type of place that reveled in warm weather because it had as many tables outdoors as it did in. The passageway that led from the sidewalk to the outdoor seating gave her a view of a space reminiscent of the children’s book The Secret Garden. It was enclosed on one side by the restaurant and on the other sides by walls covered in ivy. A fountain occupied the middle of the courtyard. Ferns and tall pots of pink and red flowers clustered in the corners.

They entered The Grapevine’s interior. While John gave the hostess his name and Sherry’s name, Nora’s attention combed anxiously over the diners filling the indoor space. No woman in a pink scarf.

Her heart started to race. Nora! This isn’t your reunion. You’re supposed to be here to support John, to be steady.

“Right this way,” the hostess said. She picked up two menus and led them outside.

As soon as John stepped into the courtyard, he saw her.

Sherry sat at a table near the back corner. She wore a pink scarf and a white shirt with its collar turned up. As they approached, she rose, her face softening with emotions he couldn’t name. “John,” she said quietly, opening her arms.

He hugged her. She was several inches shorter than he was, but her arms were strong around him. When other people would have pulled away, she gripped him tighter, and he realized that the hug wasn’t a greeting so much as a conversation. She was communicating to him that she hadn’t forgotten him and that it was good to see him for the second time in his life. He communicated the same to her.

Here she was, at last. Sherry. His birth mother.

John waited, holding her patiently until she was ready to release him. When she moved away, she smiled at him for a long moment through watery eyes. Then they all took their seats.

“I don’t often cry,” she told him.

Nora had a tissue ready. “Here you are.”

“Thank you.” Sherry took it and dabbed her eyes. “My. Forgive me. I’m more overcome by . . . this than I thought I would be.”

“I understand,” Nora said, and he was grateful he’d brought Nora. No one was better at dealing with women’s feelings than other women.

“I’m Sherry.”

“Nora. It’s nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Sherry reminded John of Laura Bush. She had the same brown hair styled in the same classy, conservative way. She was close in age to his mom, and he could easily picture Sherry as one of his mom’s friends from church or work or the group she played tennis with on Saturdays. Sherry’s diamond earrings, ring, and clothes suggested that she had both means and good taste.

“You look like my dad and my brother Jeff,” Sherry said to him.

He couldn’t see himself in Sherry at all except in her brown hair and maybe her eyes. Were her eyes hazel? They were. Like his.

This was strange. This was like wishing all your life that you could meet a fictional character . . . say, Luke Skywalker. And then one sunny summer day, you found yourself sitting at a table across from Luke Skywalker.

Sherry was studying him intently, too. “This is hard to believe.”

“It is,” he agreed. “Thank you for answering my letter.”

“You’re welcome.”

A male waiter arrived and it took effort for John to collect his thoughts enough to say that he wanted to drink water. Nora chatted with the waiter, asking him which lunch dishes he recommended. The normalcy of their exchange settled John.

“Would it be all right if we order now?” Nora asked the waiter.

He said that it was. Sherry ordered. Nora ordered the dish the waiter had recommended.

“Two of those, please,” John said, though he didn’t feel like eating. The waiter moved off.

“Tell me about your family, John.” Sherry had excellent posture. She sat very straight and still, hands in her lap.

He told her about his parents and his younger sister.

“They sound wonderful,” she said.

“They are.”

“I’m glad to know that you were raised by people like them.”

“What about you, Sherry?” Nora asked. “I’d love to know about your family.”

“My husband’s name is Ed. He’s an engineer. We have two children together. Our oldest is Lauren, who’s twenty-six. She works as a consultant in San Francisco. She’s engaged to be married.”

“How nice,” Nora said.

“Our son, Ben, is twenty-two. He’s finishing up at Gonzaga University. They’re both doing very well.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Nora said.

A brief pause. “I—I know that you have a lot of questions, John. About me. About your birth. I . . .” She drew in a long breath, looking between him and Nora. “I thought perhaps I should start at the beginning, so you can know a little about my background. Would that be all right?”

“That would be great,” Nora answered in a tone that assured her she could begin her story anywhere she liked.

“Sure,” John said.

“I’m from Bend, Oregon,” Sherry said. “Did you already know that?”

“We did,” Nora answered.

“My parents were and are wonderful people. Their faith is the central pillar of their lives. They were strict and protective of me when I was growing up. But good, too. Always good.”

John dipped his chin.

“I attended Portland State,” Sherry continued. “After I graduated from there, I got a teaching job in Shelton. My parents were happy with that because they wanted me to live with family, and my aunt Deborah, my dad’s sister, lived in Shelton at that time. I was thrilled to move in with Deborah because she was one of my favorite people. She was successful and independent and, in my eyes, forward-thinking compared to my parents. She and I had always been close.”

“We visited the house you and Deborah lived in,” John said.

“Did you? Ah.” Sherry seemed to lose herself in memories for a moment before refocusing on him. “When I became pregnant, I’d just turned twenty-two and I was terrified. I don’t think there’s any way to explain to you how terrified I was, how distraught. I didn’t know what to do. Every time I thought about how my parents and brother might react if I told them the news, my head would spin.”

Sherry quieted as their waiter delivered their drink order, then continued talking in her articulate, measured way once he was gone.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of how upset my parents would be and how mortifying it would be for them to have to share the news of my pregnancy with our extended family and their friends. So I decided not to tell them.” Frown lines marked her forehead. “Later, much later, when my own daughter was twenty-two, I realized how foolish I’d been. Of course I should have told my parents about my pregnancy. Of course I should have. Their love for me would have been strong enough to bear the truth.” Regret filled her expression. “My only explanation is that back then, the scared twenty-two-year-old I was couldn’t face telling them.”

“I understand,” John said. And he did. “I don’t blame you. For anything.”

“I decided to put you up for adoption,” she said with a faint rasp in her voice, “because I wanted you to have the best life possible, and I realized that I couldn’t give that to you.”

“That’s exactly what my mom and dad always told me about you.”

“God bless them.” Moisture filled her eyes again. “And thank you, John. For not blaming me. I carry guilt about what happened.”

“Don’t.”

Nora squeezed Sherry’s hand. Strength appeared to flow through the contact from Nora into Sherry. When Nora let go, Sherry had herself back under control.

“How were you able to keep your parents from finding out about your pregnancy?” Nora asked.

“Deborah helped me. Because of her help, it wasn’t very hard, actually. I was already living several hours away from my mom and dad. I visited Bend when I was three or four months along but not yet showing. Then summer vacation arrived, and Deborah and I told them that I’d received a last-minute invitation to teach summer school in Minnesota. That was a lie. I stayed right where I was in Shelton with Deborah until the baby—John was born. Deborah was a lifeline for me in those days. She went with me to my obstetrician’s visits and helped me research adoption agencies. She was with me, the only one with me, during labor and delivery.”

“Were you able to spend time with John after he was born?”

“I got to hold you for about an hour.” Sherry looked at him as if searching his features for the baby she remembered. “You were a big baby. Beautiful. Perfectly healthy. With a cry as loud as your silences were quiet.”

He didn’t know what to say. His mom had taken hundreds of baby pictures of him, so he knew what Sherry had seen when she’d looked at him as a newborn. He also knew what he’d looked like at every age after that, which was knowledge Sherry didn’t have.

“We know from John’s birth certificate that you named him Mark Lucas,” Nora said.

“Yes. Lucas is my father’s name. And Mark was my favorite boy’s name.”

“Did you continue teaching in Shelton?” John asked.

“No. A few weeks after the adoption, I returned to Oregon. I moved in with close friends in Grants Pass and got a job teaching second grade. A year or so later I met Ed at church, and we started dating. As things grew more serious between Ed and me, I wrestled with whether or not to tell him about the pregnancy and the baby I gave up.”

Sherry took a sip of water. The cup trembled slightly before she set it down. “When I was pregnant, I thought I’d be able to deliver the baby, then go on with life as if nothing had happened. Instead, I couldn’t forget any of it. Keeping it secret from my family hadn’t made it go away. Every single day I was aware that there was a little boy walking around in the world somewhere that I’d given birth to but knew nothing about.” She sighed. “I thought I’d be able to push down the things that had happened to me, but I couldn’t. The things that happen to us in our lives happen. They won’t and can’t be pushed down.”

John had thought plenty about Sherry and how this reunion might affect her. He’d expected this meeting to be difficult for her, and it seemed that it was. He hadn’t thought enough, however, about how living with her decision might have affected her across the years since she’d made her choice. He’d been too focused on how her choice had impacted him.

“It got to a point,” Sherry said, “when I realized I was falling in love with Ed and he with me, and I knew I had to tell him. It still makes me cry to think about the grace he immediately extended to me. He was so supportive. He is so supportive. He’s always assured me that he’s fine with me telling my parents, my extended family, and our kids. But I never have told them. Deborah and Ed are the only ones who know.”

John had run all the scenarios in his mind so he’d half-expected this news. He’d already told her he didn’t blame her, and wouldn’t start blaming her or judging her now. Still, it was hard to hear her say that she hadn’t told her legitimate children about him, her illegitimate child.

“I never made a conscious decision not to tell Lauren and Ben. It was more a question of . . . when.” Sherry looked to Nora. “Do you tell a toddler that you once had a baby you gave away? Do you look into the trusting face of an elementary school girl and tell her? Do you tell your son when he’s a teenager and already full of reasons not to like you?”

“I don’t know,” Nora answered kindly, honestly.

“The right moment never came,” Sherry said. “If I told my kids and my parents and the rest of my family now, I’m afraid that their perception of me would change. They’d no doubt be angry with me for keeping something this important from them for so long. And they’d have a right to be angry.” She took another sip of water. “I wish I’d told everyone about the pregnancy right from the beginning. Instead of trusting the people closest to me with the truth, I covered everything up. I made a big mistake.”

“We all make mistakes,” John said.

“My big mistake explains why I said in my email to you, John, that contact between us would be difficult.”

He nodded. Sherry had given him a great deal of information, but she’d said nothing yet about his birth father and her relationship with him. And he’d said nothing yet about his diagnosis. Both subjects needed to be addressed. “A few months ago I learned that I have an inherited eye condition called Malattia Leventinese, which is partly why I wanted to contact you. Have you ever heard of it?”

“No,” she said with concerned surprise. “I haven’t.”

“It causes vision loss.”

“I’m so sorry, John. You said that it was inherited. So is it . . . the kind of thing that can hide for generations and then crop up?”

“No. Not everyone in a family that’s affected by it will have it. But a lot of people will. About half. You would know if it’s in your family.”

“No one in my family has it.”

He took a second to absorb that. “What that means is that I inherited it from my biological father.”

Sherry flinched.

“I apologize for bringing him up, but I’d appreciate the chance to get a medical history from you and from him.”

“Of course. That makes sense. Only . . .” She smoothed her fingers along the corner of the table over and over. “Are you sure you want to know about him?”

“I’m very sure,” he said without hesitation.

She dropped her hands back into her lap. He watched her grip her wrist reflexively. “The thing is . . . it’s not a . . . pleasant story. I’ve thought about whether or not to discuss it with you, and I still don’t know if I should. I just . . . I’m unsure. I don’t want to hurt you.”

His muscles tightened with worry. She wouldn’t withhold the identity of his birth father from him, surely. “If Malattia Leventinese doesn’t run in your family, then it must have come from my biological father,” he said calmly. “I can’t contact him or his relatives about the condition unless I know who he is.”

She swallowed. “Yes, but I’m afraid that it will be difficult for you to hear about him. That it will cause you unnecessary pain.”

What could have happened between Sherry and his father? Dread began to simmer within him. “I’d still like to know.”

Her eyes held a world of pain and indecision. “Are you very, very sure?”

“Yes.” He’d faced plenty of challenging things in his life. No part of him wanted to shy away from this. “It’s important for me to know who both my parents are.”

Sherry spoke carefully, as if each word were a stepping-stone in a stream she had to cross. “The winter after I moved in with Deborah, I went hiking alone on one of the trails outside of Shelton.” He read apology in her face. “I’d been walking for about twenty minutes when I . . .” Her voice faded to nothing. She cleared her throat. She was still gripping one wrist, so tightly her knuckles had whitened. “I was pulled off the path by a man,” she finally managed to say.

No, John thought.

“He dragged me out of sight.” Her voice shook. Sorrow weighted her frown. “He put duct tape over my mouth and around my wrists. He . . .” Her gaze slid from his.

No, he wanted to yell. No!

Nora was dead quiet. He couldn’t stand to look at her.

“He took advantage of me.” He could hear growing courage in Sherry’s tone even as his own courage drained out of him. “Af—afterward, I managed to get myself back to the house. Deborah took me to the hospital.” She paused to inhale and exhale. Once. Twice.

“I was treated and evidence was taken and stored. I’d hardly even seen the man’s face because he was pressing my cheek into the dirt the whole time, but I answered the detective’s questions as best I could.”

John couldn’t speak.

“The man who attacked me raped five more women over the next five years,” Sherry said. “His final victim was a woman named Robin Bradford. Her, he killed. She was only twenty-five, and she was the mother of two little girls.”

John felt like he was going to vomit. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. He sat motionless while everything inside him tore apart.

“I’m thankful now that I allowed the nurses to take, um, evidence, because when they finally caught the man who’d done it, that evidence helped put him away. His name was Brian Raymond.”

John’s heart beat in hollow, aching thuds.

“A month after the attack,” Sherry said, “I found out I was pregnant.”

Through the rush of awful thoughts filling his brain, John understood, in a distant way, how hard it must have been for Sherry to tell him this. Yet she was looking at him like she wanted to extend compassion, not like she expected to receive it. “I’m so sorry, John. I wish the facts were different. I know how terrible they are.”

“It’s okay,” he said hoarsely. “Thank you for telling me.” He was too devastated to say anything else. He regretted that he couldn’t find more words, better words. Why—why wasn’t Nora saying anything? It took all John had to glance at her.

Nora’s skin had paled. As if in answer to his gaze, she turned and met his eyes. In her face he saw two things. Horror. And disgust.

He reached toward her, and she jerked instinctively back.

He pushed to his feet so quickly that the legs of his chair made a loud scraping sound. “I’m sorry,” he told Sherry with a voice like sandpaper. “I can’t stay.”

“I understand,” Sherry assured him.

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

“It’s all right.”

“John,” Nora said urgently.

He didn’t answer. He stalked from the restaurant without once looking back.

———

Nora balanced her palms on the table and rose halfway to standing as she watched John leave. Should she go after him? Or give him room? She wanted to go after him, but doing so would mean leaving Sherry here alone after Sherry had just finished trusting them with her traumatic story.

Gradually, filled with numbing gray shock, Nora lowered into her chair. John’s biological father had raped Sherry. John’s biological father had raped and killed Nora’s mother. Her lovely sweet mother. John’s biological father was the monster who’d stolen her mother’s chance to live, to be a mother to her.

That man’s blood flowed in John’s veins.

But John . . . John was good. Had he seen just now what she’d been thinking? He’d definitely seen how she’d recoiled. She’d been processing. She’d needed a minute to get her thoughts right.

Panic and remorse swirled inside her. She hadn’t guarded herself like she should have. What had her response betrayed to him?

Vaguely, she became aware of Sherry’s gentle hand on her arm. Sherry’s words. “Nora? Are you all right?”

“I think so.”

“Here. Drink some water.”

Nora sat back and took two long sips of icy water while Sherry watched anxiously. “Better?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not surprised that John needed space. Imagine the shock of finding out that you were conceived that way.” She clicked her tongue. “Ever since I received his letter, I’ve been praying about whether to meet with John and whether to tell him about the circumstances of his birth. I hope I made the right choice.”

“I think you did. You warned him, Sherry. John was the one who decided that he wanted to know.”

Sherry appeared to think through Nora’s statement, and then, in the relaxing of her posture, to accept it. “Between you and me, I almost had an abortion when I found out I was expecting. I even went to the clinic and sat in the waiting room, but I couldn’t go through with it. The Holy Spirit spoke to me in a powerful way, and there was just no way I could . . . go through with it. What I didn’t get a chance to say to John just now is that I’m thankful that I carried him and gave birth to him. Will you tell him that for me?”

“I will if you want me to, but I think it might mean a lot to John if you told him yourself through a phone call or email or letter.”

She paused. “You’re right. I’ll tell him.” Sherry surveyed Nora’s face. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re very pale.”

Sherry deserved an explanation. “Part of why . . .” She licked her lips. “Part of why John reacted the way that he did is because my mother was Robin Bradford.”

Sherry blanched. “No.”

“My mother was killed by Brian Raymond, and John knows that.” Grief scored Nora. Grief for John and the misery intertwined with the truth of his conception.

Text message from Nora to John:

Please call me.