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Chapter Thirty-One
“When will we have the results?” Tricia asked, trying to sound calm, but the anxiety came through in her tone.
“Tomorrow evening at the latest. Erin provided another sample last night, it’s already at the lab for analysis.”
“What time are you leaving?” she asked.
Since Betty’s visit I’d spoken to Erin on the phone, but she still had no clue I knew more than I’d told her already. She had no idea about Tricia, because it was Tricia herself who had said she wouldn’t believe anyone was her child without documentary proof.
Richard and his team at the vetting office had already established that Erin’s parents had registered Erin’s birth as their own, but in a deathbed confession from her adoptive mother, Erin had learned the truth around her birth. I knew there was a lot more to the story, but I had felt it necessary not to press further because I hadn’t wanted to raise her suspicions. I was sure once the DNA test confirmed who she was, we’d all know soon enough what the truth of the matter was.
Erin had suggested a lunchtime meeting at Brookfield Place, a large plaza situated in The Battery, on the southern edge of Manhattan Island near where she worked. It was a very public place and I felt pleased she was looking out for her personal safety, despite her excitement at gathering information on her true heritage.
The young woman had chosen to meet me at a Starbucks there and was already seated by the door when I entered. My breath hitched when her gorgeous bright eyes met mine.
“Hi, I’m James,” I said, smiling when I recognized her instantly and approached her table. Erin immediately stood and I noted she was almost as tall as Tricia.
“Great to meet you,” she said in a friendly tone, as her eyes roamed the length of me and gestured toward a chair opposite her. “Can I get you a coffee?”
“Allow me,” I replied, not having sat down. “What’s your poison, cappuccino?” I asked, nodding at the large empty cup and saucer.
She grinned. “I can see why you’re interested in helping me, quite the detective, aren’t you?” I grinned in return, noting she had her mom’s direct nature.
I chuckled. “I guess,” I replied, feeling a little perturbed by the uncanny resemblance of the younger woman to mine.
After organizing the coffees, I sat down across from her and she filled me in on a little of her background and how she’d found out through her father’s illness she wasn’t his natural child.
“That must have been devastating for you.”
“It was, and for years I’d believed my mom when she’d told me she’d had an affair and the father was dead. However, that wasn’t true either. I didn’t think I could be shocked anymore until she told me on her deathbed I’d been adopted, and I wasn’t hers either.”
“Oh, my, God, how horrible for you.” I sat stunned by her admission and tried to absorb that new revelation. I wondered how Tricia might react to that when they met and she learned Erin’s side of the story. There was no way I would have taken that away from either woman by passing on what Erin had told me. Their journey of discovery had to be between them, not some secondhand account from me.
Richard had told Erin they had a possible match for the information they’d found, but the woman in question wanted documentary proof before coming forward. Erin readily agreed to another DNA test as a possible match when Richard had suggested this to her.
“Do you know anything about this woman?” Erin probed, as she looked at me with the same level of intensity her mom had when she questioned me.
“Just that she’s the correct age, from New Jersey, and she had a female child on the same day as you were born, here in New York. She’s a career woman. A college graduate, and she’s single but in a relationship.”
“Children?” The eager look she gave me told me she would have loved siblings.
“No other children,” I replied blandly, and saw some light go from her eyes before they brightened again with her next question.
“Richard said she has a house in New Jersey?”
“She does but she spends part of the week here in New York,” I replied honestly, figuring I hadn’t given too much away by telling her that.
“Wow, I’ve lived and worked here for almost twelve years and I could have passed her in the street.”
“Twelve years?” I asked, shifting the conversation on to a less invasive line of questioning about Tricia.
“Yeah, although I spent the first year or so in Baltimore before we moved all over, Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan. I came to New York for college. After graduating from Rochester, I gained an internship and more substantial roles at Bank of America,” she chuckled. “I’m still in a senior accounting specialist role.”
For a long moment I said nothing, my heart racing because I felt I would have had to have cloned Tricia to have found anyone more alike. Then and there I had wanted to forget the DNA test and give Erin the confirmation she had needed. I’d wanted to tell her the woman I’d been talking about was the love of my life and her mother. But I knew it wasn’t that easy, and for Tricia, at least, she would need to see the result in black and white before she’d accept her daughter.
Forty minutes later, Erin waved me goodbye and I watched as she hitched her strap on her purse higher on her shoulder and wove her way through the crowds on the street, as she made her way back to work. When she had mingled into the crowd and I could no longer see her, I pulled out my cell, knowing it would be a long twenty-four hours for all of us and I came up with a last minute plan and called Tricia.
“How would you feel about a boat ride today?”
