Chapter 2 - Something I Should Have Said Forty Years Ago
Nobody moved.
Harriet's hands were trembling. I crossed the patio to her.
"Harriet. What is it? What do you see?"
She couldn't get a word out. She just kept staring at Mark's back.
He turned around to face her. "Ma'am — do you know something about this scar?"
Harriet finally lifted her eyes to his face. They were wet.
"Where were you born?"
Mark blinked. "What?"
"Where were you born. Please."
"St. Bridget's Hospital. In New Hampshire. Why does that—"
Harriet made a sound I had never heard her make in sixty-eight years of being her sister. Half a gasp, half a sob, caught in her throat.
Kayla grabbed her arm. "Aunt Harriet, you're scaring people. What is going on?"
But Harriet wasn't looking at Kayla. She was looking at me.
"I have to tell you something." Her voice was almost gone. "Something I should have told you forty years ago."
The patio was dead still. Twenty people. Nobody breathing.
I was cold, standing there in the July sun.
"Harriet—"
"You had a baby," she whispered. "Before Kayla. Before any of them."
My heart stopped.
May you like
"And I'm the one who carried him out of that hospital."
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