The next day, before school, I went to find Mrs. Laughlin. I located her in the kitchen and asked Eli to give us a moment. The most he would give me was six or seven extra feet.
Mrs. Laughlin was kneading dough. She saw me out of the corner of her eye and kneaded harder. “What can I do for you?” she asked tersely.
I braced myself because I was almost certain this wasn’t going to go well. I probably should have just kept my mouth shut, but I’d spent most of the night thinking that if Rebecca’s mom was Toby’s mom, then the Laughlins hadn’t just watched Toby grow up. They hadn’t just loved him because he was lovable.
He was their grandson. And that makes me…
I pressed my lips together, then decided that the best way to rip a bandage off was quickly. “I need to talk to you about Toby.” I kept my voice low.
Wham. Mrs. Laughlin picked the dough up and expertly slammed it back down, then wiped her hands on her apron and whipped her head to look directly at me. “Listen to me, little miss. You may own this House. You may be richer than sin. You could own the sun for all I care, but I will not let you hurt everyone who loved that boy by dredging this up and—”
“He was your grandson.” My voice shook. “Your daughter got pregnant. You hid it, and the Hawthornes adopted the baby.”
Mrs. Laughlin went pale. “Hush,” she ordered, her voice shaking even more than mine had. “You can’t walk around here saying things like that.”
“Toby was your grandson,” I repeated. My throat felt like it was swelling, and my eyes were starting to sting. “And I think he’s my father.”
Mrs. Laughlin’s mouth opened, then twisted, like she’d been on the verge of yelling at me, then run out of air. Both of her hands went to the flour-covered countertop, and she held on to it like what I’d just said was threatening to bring her to her knees.
I took a step toward her. I wanted to reach out, but I didn’t press my luck. Instead, I held out the file I had retrieved from Tobias Hawthorne’s study. Mrs. Laughlin didn’t take it. I wasn’t sure she could.
“Here,” I said.
“No.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, I’m not going to—”
I took a single sheet of paper out of the file. “This is my birth certificate,” I said quietly. “Look at the signature.”
And bless her, she did. I heard a sharp intake of air, and then finally she looked back at me.
My eyes were stinging worse now, but I kept going. I didn’t want to stop, because part of me was terrified about what she might say. “Here are some pictures Tobias Hawthorne had a private detective take of me, shortly before he died.” I laid three photographs out on the counter. Two of me playing chess with Harry, one of the two of us in line for a breakfast sandwich. Toby wasn’t facing the camera in any of them, but I willed Mrs. Laughlin to look at what she could see—his hair, his body, the way he stood. Recognize him.
“That man,” I said, nodding to the pictures. “He showed up right after my mother died. I thought he was homeless. Maybe he was. We played chess in the park every week, sometimes every morning.” I could hear the raw emotion in my own voice. “He and I had this ongoing bet that if I won, he had to let me buy him breakfast, but if he won, I couldn’t even offer. I’m competitive, and I’m good at chess, so I won a lot—but he won more.”
Mrs. Laughlin closed her eyes, but they didn’t stay closed for long, and when she opened them, she stared right at the photographs “That could be anyone,” she said roughly.
I swallowed. “Why do you think Tobias Hawthorne left me his fortune?” I asked quietly.
Mrs. Laughlin’s breath grew ragged. She turned to look at me, and when she did, I saw every emotion I felt mirrored in her eyes—and then some.
“Oh, Tobias,” she whispered. It was the first time I’d ever heard her call her former employer anything but Mr. Hawthorne. “What did you do?”
“We’re still trying to figure it out,” I said, a ball of emotion rising in my throat. “But—”
I never got the chance to finish that sentence, because the next thing I knew, Mrs. Laughlin was hugging me, holding on to me for dear life.