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“Did your father ever mention any relatives?”
“No… Nobody has ever come to visit us.” She sniffs, tilting her head to look at me. “Do you think it’s possible I do have relatives?”
I brush a tear off her cheek with the back of my finger. “There are ways to find out. I could help you.”
“Really?”
“On one condition.”
Orca looks down, as if she already knows my condition. “And what is that?”
“Once we find out about your mother’s family, you’ll go back to the lighthouse and make things right with your father.”
There’s a long silence while Orca thinks about it. She finally nods and leans in to press one last kiss to my lips. “I promise.”
* * *
By the time we exit the grocery store, it has stopped raining. I load the bags into the backseat of my truck and drive us downtown, finding a place to parallel park on Main Street. Orca keeps asking, “Where are we going?” but I don’t breathe a word until we have walked to the little stone church across from the bank.
“Does this place look familiar?”
Orca peers up at the church for a moment before realization dawns on her face. “The picture! Mama and Papa’s wedding. They got married here, didn’t they?”
I nod. “The church will have a register of all the marriages that took place here. If we can find your mother’s maiden name, we might be able to track down her relatives.”
Orca beams at me, her whole face lighting up like the first rays of dawn. “Thank you, Adam.”
“Don’t thank me yet. There’s a chance you don’t have any living relatives.”
She shakes her head. “At least we’ll know for sure. Come on.”
With her hand in mine, we walk down the flagstone path and through the granite archway into the church.
It doesn’t take long to explain our predicament to the pastor, who is tidying up after Sunday service.
“Your parents were married here twenty years ago?” he asks, stroking his silver mustache.
“My father’s name is Lawrence Monroe,” Orca supplies. “He and my mother were married on September twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy-seven.”
The pastor strides over to an old mahogany door and swings it open, revealing a shallow closet. Leather-bound register books are stacked on shelves inside, one for every decade. He slides out one of the books and places it on a nearby table, paging to the correct date.
“Ah, here we are.” The pastor taps an entry in the book. “September twenty-ninth. Lawrence Monroe and Miriam Rushbrook.”
Orca’s eyes light up with curiosity as she steps closer. “Rushbrook,” she murmurs under her breath. “Sir, do you know if she had any family? Any relatives who still live nearby?”
The pastor shakes his head. “I’m afraid I don’t know any Rushbrooks. But her parents’ names are listed there.”
Orca frowns, studying the register. “Adam,” she says, beckoning me over, “do you think her parents could still be alive?”
“It’s possible.” I squint to read the scrawly handwriting.
Olivia Rushbrook.
Harrison Rushbrook.
“We can try to track them down. If they’re alive and living anywhere in Skagit County, we can probably find their phone number in the public records.”
Orca looks up at me, a hopeful smile blossoming on her face.
