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“The other third goes to your sister who lives in New York. I imagine she’s feeling the same thing as the two of you,” Donald said.
Maura and Hayley were shocked and looked at each other.
“We don’t have a sister, and she must be some kind of scammer. I don’t know why my father kept this house a secret, but she wants a share of it. She’s probably a realtor from the area,” Maura said. She didn’t care what Donald said. She knew fraud when she saw it.
“What you’re saying suggests that our father had an affair. He worked on an oil rig, for goodness sake. Ninety percent of the people on the rig were men, and he’d never have had the time to father another child,” Hayley said.
“Bill Allen lived two lives and had a second family in Brooklyn. He had a wife and one daughter, and her name is Sophie Cast,” Donald said flatly.
Maura stood and shoved the papers in her bag. "Thanks for bringing this to us, Donald. It’s a crazy story, and you know that David and I are going to do a deep dive. We're going to get to the bottom of this so that my mother never has to hear about any of this.”
Hayley followed after thanking Donald for his help and promising to be in touch. Maura was sure it was a scam, and in her head, Hayley was already thinking of sitting on the front porch of her new home in Maryland. While Maura was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, Hayley just rolled with it.
2
Hayley showed up at the Utica Memorial Hospital a few hours after she had found out she might have another sister. She prioritized work, and when she wasn’t there, Hayley was volunteering. She tended to gravitate towards children’s charities, which helped fill the void of never having had children of her own. Hayley had frozen her eggs, and she and her husband were scheduled to have them transplanted when he died. Having a child as a single working woman wasn’t something she would do, so that idea was shelved.
The story about her father having another family was too wild to wrap her head around. Where did he find the time? There was too much that she didn’t know, so it wasn’t something she would be stressed about – yet. Did that make him a polygamist? As far as she knew, Bill Allen had never had a traffic ticket, so it didn’t fit.
Hayley never wanted a busy night in the ED because it meant people had experienced trauma. However, she needed a distraction to keep from thinking about the issues piling up in her mind. She had a storage room in her brain for things she didn’t want to deal with, and only Hayley had the key to open it. It had become so full that she could hardly close it. Her husband and father’s deaths, her mother's illness, and now this issue with her polygamist father.
“Hayley, how’s my favorite shift buddy?" Tio asked.
"Seriously, you're working tonight?" Hayley asked. She was relieved to have her good friend working with her. They had gone to college together in Albany and then nursing school in Utica.
“I picked up the shift from Tabitha because she had a thing with her husband. I would never have taken a night shift if it weren’t for you since you have a way of making the time fly by. How the heck do you work nights and have any kind of normal day?” he asked. “This is doing serious damage to my social schedule, and it’s only one night.”
“I have the energy of two humans. I sleep about five hours, and I feel refreshed. There’s enough left in the tank to do some volunteering and take care of personal business. Today, I had a meeting with the family attorney, along with Maura. You’d love it, Tio, because it’s drama,” Hayley said.
“I can’t wait for a break, but you don’t have many lulls in the emergency department at night, do you?” Tio asked.
“Not usually because drunk drivers and drug-related injuries happen after dark. We’re a level-one trauma center, so we should mostly expect serious cases. A lot of cases are heart-wrenching, while others are infuriating.”
* * *
By the end of the shift, Hayley had managed to tell Tio the story as she knew it. There weren’t many pauses in the action, so she told the story in segments. Tio said it was like following a soap opera as his abuela did. He loved it as she knew he would. Tio appreciated true crime, and the mysterious third sister with a second identity for Bill Allen made a good mystery.
“My bed is calling; otherwise, I’d take you to breakfast, and we could talk about this. You keep having these major changes in your life that would cause most people to break down. You seem to thrive on chaos. Goodness knows I’m big enough, so don’t hesitate to lean on me,” Tio joked. He was an all-around big man, and Hayley referred to him as a gentle giant.
“You aren’t the first one to comment on my strength in the face of adversity. It’s more like my unwillingness to deal with it, which is something my dad and I spoke about. It was brought up after Devon died suddenly, and I didn’t have a breakdown. He said it would catch up with me someday, and everything would pour out at once,” Hayley said.
“I tend to agree with your dad on that one. The second family thing is disturbing, but it’s cool that another sister exists. You’re a free spirit, so I can see you embracing the idea, but what about Maura? She seems tightly wound to me."
“Maura just doesn’t need anything more on her plate. She has two kids, a husband, and, of course, our mom. Who knows, Sophie Cast might be the perfect blend of me and Maura or nothing like either of us. She’s from Brooklyn, so maybe she’s some New York power broker or a high-powered attorney.”
Hayley saw him writing the name of her new sister’s name in a notebook he always carried.
“Oh, don’t worry about me telling another soul about Sophie. You wouldn’t mind if I looked into who she is, would you?” Tio asked.
“It’s fine. I knew you’d be on it as soon as the name passed my lips. It’s a big deal, and I’m sure People would love a story like this, and I’d read it. It’s different when it’s me, and I think I’ll look at those sensational stories differently from now on. My mother wouldn’t be able to handle the news and gossip surrounding it. Who knows about the family in New York? So many people could get hurt," Hayley said.
“So true. I’ll only let you know if I find anything interesting about Sophie. Good luck, sweetie.” Tio said as he gave her a hug and kiss on the cheek.
Hayley drove home to her two-bedroom condo and her yellow lab Major. She got the dog after the death of her husband, Devon, since she needed someone to come home to. Safety was also a concern, although he’d kiss an intruder to death. He had a ferocious bark, and Hayley had taught him how to gnash his teeth for a treat. Devon had been a life-flight paramedic, and the helicopter had crashed on the way to pick up a patient.
Hayley eyed the exercise equipment in the spare room that had been more Devon’s idea than hers. She was considering hopping on the stationary bike for thirty minutes, but her phone rang, and this early, it had to be Maura.
“Hey, Maura, what’s up? Hayley said. She answered without looking at her phone screen.
