He choked. “Something like that.”
With her eyes narrowed, Miriam sidestepped toward the door. “Okay . . . I’ll see you this evening.”
The exchange was stiff, stilted—a full conversation underneath the few words. Swallowing a lump in her throat, Pearl traced her hand across the edge of what was once her husband’s desk. What she would give to have that back—a language with another person only the two of them understood. Glances, posture, and tone.
Miriam offered a crooked smile before she slipped from the room. “Thank you for lunch, Pearl. Keep an eye on him. Don’t let his bleeding heart get him into too much trouble.”
“Will do,” Pearl called out the door, her voice light. “Though I hope you’ll make a habit of stopping by. We’d fare better if it was two against one.”
A soft chuckle punctuated with the click of heels on hardwood floated back to her.
Miriam had abandoned her sandwich, one corner nibbled. Thomas, across from her, picked at the crust of his own uneaten lunch, eyes cast downward. The heartache in the room was palpable.
Thomas leaned forward in the chair, elbows propped on his knees. “What do you say? Will you help me figure out a way to help Harvey?”
Pearl managed an impish wink. “I’ll be your accomplice. I just hope he comes back.”
She’d promised Elliot she would keep an eye out for the people of Triune First, and something was off about this whole situation.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
PRESENT DAY
In the living room, Ivy tackled the film of dust on a vase with a vigor that threatened to rub a hole in the sturdy amber-colored glass.
“Maybe the cabinet lock was always damaged.” Reese handed her some old newspaper.
She wrapped the vase and boxed it. “Mom and Dad never would give me straight answers whenever I asked about my adoption. What if they took it?”
Something flickered in Reese’s expression. His mouth twitched like he was resisting the urge to speak.
“What?”
Reese opened his mouth and pulled in a breath, concern creasing his forehead. He sat on the couch, elbows propped on his knees. “Whatever your grandmother knew, I think they’d want you to know it too. It’s not like you were born back when adoptions were kept secret.”
“You don’t know how tense they used to get whenever I asked about my life before they adopted me.”
“Ivy, your parents are the most upstanding people I’ve ever met.”
He thought she was losing her mind. Maybe she was.
“It’s more than just this missing journal. It’s the bits and pieces that never added up.” Ivy tucked another newsprint-wrapped vase in the box and paced.
“Like?”
“Remember the story we overheard back when we were kids?”
Every Sunday Reese and Ivy would crawl under the pews after service with her Crayola Big Box while they waited for Mom and Dad to finish talking with lingering parishioners so they could have lunch and take Reese home. She’d write stories in robin’s egg blue crayon and he’d illustrate.
One week Mrs. May had stood in the aisle chatting with her favorite gossip partner, Mrs. Coulter. “That Ivy is something.”
Ivy’s writing hand stilled, leaving her fearless heroine dangling above a toothy alligator, fate unknown. What was her latest indictment? Had she forgotten a page of her story on the front pew—the one where she wrote Mr. Coulter as a maniacal villain? Left the light on in one of the classrooms?
“It’s hard to believe she’s the same sickly baby left on a doorstep all those years ago.”
An odd hum thrummed in Ivy’s ears as her stomach clenched.
Mrs. Coulter had chimed in, voice hushed. “I still can’t believe a mother could leave her wee babe without a by-your-leave.”
Ivy paced around the oval coffee table and then sat for but a moment before repeating the circuit. “People don’t actually abandon babies on doorsteps. That stuff is reserved for movie drama. It reeks of fake cover story—what if my parents invented it to keep people from asking questions because something was off about my adoption. And they made sure I never found out the truth.”
“But you’ve seen your adoption paperwork. It confirmed everything.”
“It called me a foundling. But what if that’s just what they told the authorities?”
“So, what, Ivy? Your parents were kidnappers?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Just talk to them.”
The same thing always came out of his mouth whenever she questioned where she came from. He hadn’t changed a bit from the day they’d overheard the gossip.
Sitting across from her at the pizza parlor after church that day, Reese had spent the entire meal nudging her pristine white stockings under the table with his ratty hand-me-down Nikes, clearing his throat in a pointed way.
She picked the grease-slicked pepperonis off her pizza, avoiding his begging gaze. As a kid, Reese was always straightforward. The proverbial bull in a china shop, he plowed ahead while Ivy tiptoed around corners to avoid breakage. Even at eight, she was burdened by an awareness of the delicate nature of things. Feelings. Hopes. Dreams. Families.
For reasons unknown, Ivy had been too much for her birth mother. She never again wanted to be too difficult. Or ungrateful. Or any of the hundred reasons her childhood imagination invented for being left behind.
Reese ran his hand through his hair. “If your grandma knew something all this time, I don’t understand why she never said anything until now.”
Ivy sank into the old wingback and traced her fingers over the raised brocade. “I don’t know, but sometimes when Grandma looked at me, sadness flickered in her eyes. As though she wanted to say something. Especially when I got older.”
Reese stood and continued packing the box with the glassware Grandma had bequeathed to Mrs. Benson, the retired secretary at the police department. “I still don’t think your parents would have taken something Grandma wanted you to have.”
Ivy stood from the chair and paced, tapping her finger against her chin. “What if Mrs. Benson knows something? Or one of the other people on her list. Maybe they remember something about the past. Something bad enough that someone wants it to stay buried.” Ivy walked across the room and flicked off the living room lights.
“Ivy . . .”
“You coming?”
It was a mystery why Grandma thought Mrs. Benson needed more glassware. Depression-era moon and star glass graced almost every flat surface in the woman’s home, including a curio-cabinetful in the corner. The afternoon sun spilled through her windows and glinted off the rainbow of colors. A hint of cinnamon and allspice floated in the air.
“Come in. Come in.” The short, plump lady motioned Reese and Ivy in with the vigor of one who hadn’t had a houseguest in years. “I’ve got an apple pie cooling, if y’all want to stop in for a spell.”
Perfect. Dessert and company would be just the thing to get the woman talking.
“Pearl was the sweetest thing. She and Mother were such dear friends. So kind of her to have set something aside for me.” A wistful smile stretched Mrs. Benson’s age-lined face.
Ivy set the box on the cushion of the worn microfiber couch. “Her collection of moon and star glassware.” She sent Mrs. Benson a wink. “For some reason, she thought you might want this.”