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“That doesn’t excuse her. She made her choice.”
Nora went through a lot, being pregnant at sixteen. She traveled around the U.S. with a charismatic rockstar. Justus was part of her story, too. And all the bad experiences with Nora had already happened. It ended seventeen years ago with my parents.
Photographers and television crews were on the street in front of the building when we arrived. They recorded us as we drove past and into the underground parking lot. I rubbed the back of my neck and temples. Will it always be like this?
Inside, the house held memories. It was where Paul and I argued before Texas. Our goodbye. But now we had a chance to start over.
Laurence placed the folder on the coffee table in the living room. I hugged him and sat down in front of it. Paul came and sat next to me. “Are you hungry?”
“Later, please.”
He glared at the folder, and I understood why. He saw it as pain and never wanted anything to harm me.
Still, the decision was my own, and my pulse picked up as I pulled out a stack of papers and a memory stick.
“The private investigator is old-school. He has video clips.” He called Opal to get a laptop and thanked her while I stared down at the top image. It was a photo of Nora labeled Celeste Ebbings.
The image was so different from the one I held in my mind. That was of a young, fashionable woman with long brown hair. Now it was more of a dark blonde and hung in a long braid over a shoulder with a woven scarf. But it was still her. She was thirty-nine, and her skin was weathered by the sun, with lines around her eyes and lips. What stood out was the deep scar from her eyebrow to her nose. It appeared old but held a dark story of its own. And for a moment, I felt sad for her. My attention moved on to the smock dress that went to her ankles and her boots. They were covered in dirt. Behind her was a red barn and field.
I blinked. “She lives on a farm?”
“She does,” Paul confirmed. “I’ve been briefed on her.”
I nodded, and moved to the next photo. It had a tag that read Earl Ebbings. He appeared much older, with salt and pepper hair. There was another photo attached, with him wearing a sheriff’s badge. It had a note on it: Retired sheriff of Lewistown, Montana. Earl Ebbings. Divorced. Remarried to Celeste Ebbings.
“She lives in Montana,” I mumbled. “She’s married.”
Paul didn’t answer, but studied me.
I flipped to the next page, and my heart stopped. Two classroom photos were taped to a piece of paper with a typed note: Twins, Luna and Bear Ebbings. Daughter and son of Celeste and Earl Ebbings. Fourteen years old.
Nora had more children after me. I have a half-brother and sister. My vision blurred as I flipped through more photos. They were surveillance-styled clips of them around their farm and store. There was also more paperwork.
Paul rubbed my back. “Do you want to stop?”
“No, I want to see the video,” I rasped.
Paul sighed heavily as he clicked play. My pulse raced as I stared at the screen. Celeste picked apples with a group of farmhands, and Earl was on a tractor tending a field. Bear had a buzz cut and beads strung around his neck. He had a sly expression in his clip as he gazed at a computer screen in what appeared to be a library. It made me smile despite it all.
There was Luna, coming out of the house. Her face was delicate, heart-shaped like the young Nora I remembered. She wore a smock dress just like Celeste had on. Then it dawned on me. Nora made it. She walked to the back of their porch with a basket of yarn, sat on the steps, and started knitting.…
A match lit under my ribcage, burning the ball in my chest to ash. I covered my mouth to keep in the scream. Tears flowed like a rushing jet down my face, but they could not put out the fire. Luna knits like me. She looks like me. But she kept her. She was my half-sister, and I had a half-brother. No, I don’t. They are Celeste’s family. One she never wanted me to know. How can she live with her family knowing I exist? Why doesn’t she even care?
Paul pulled me into his lap, hugged me, and the fragile wall holding in my pain broke like an overflowing dam. The sobs flooded out of my control. “Celeste doesn’t matter. She missed out on a beautiful, talented, sweet daughter. She doesn’t deserve you. You have your real mom and dad. They love you. I love you.” All he said was true, but still I grieved. The little girl I once was needed to mourn.
When I calmed, I returned to the remaining contents of the folder. Nora had been criminally charged with prostitution, theft, and drug distribution. She was incarcerated for three years in a Wisconsin jail—that had to be when Mom last saw her. The mugshots were severe. Her skin protruded as if she was malnourished, and her eyes were dull and lifeless. There were needle marks on her arms and bruises. Her life had been hard, but it changed. A picture of her in a group at Bridgeways Halfway House. A high school diploma and a degree in education and textiles. There was only a note that she was selling knickknacks out of a van across the country and settled in Montana. But Mom told me she had wanderlust. Then there were a few new-age groups, her with the twins, and a name change. She had recreated herself and let go of her past. And that’s when the truth was glaringly obvious. She’d deleted her past…which included me.
There was information on the farm at the end. One page was wrinkled, and I spread it out. It was an old loan for the farm, and I was about to put it away with the rest, but something about it caught my eye.
Parker and Ralls Holdings.
Ralls.
I wrinkled my nose. “Huh, funny.”
“What’s funny?” Paul asked.
“Christina Ralls had been hostile to me at the hotel in Paris. Her husband is Louis Ralls, but he’s a CEO of some pharmaceutical company.”
