Soon Maddie traveled with Rose through teenage years in a world so innocent it was hard to believe. She marveled at the simplicity of life, the lack of cynicism, the focus on a world close at hand.
Until Maddie’s stomach growled, she never even registered that she’d forgotten to eat lunch. A quick glance at the shifted sunlight told her that lunch was hours past. Reluctantly, she closed the book and reached for the table to set it down, but she didn’t reach far enough and it slipped off the table’s edge. As she grabbed for it, a folded sheet of paper fluttered to the floor.
Maddie righted the book and opened the paper. The sheet bore no date. Maddie read the words on the page with growing disbelief.
I do not know what to do. I have just heard that Jenny is marrying Sam Gallagher. My heart cries out to tell her that Dalton is not dead, but what good would it do? I curse the day I cast all of our lives into hell by fighting back when Buster raged. Now I have no son, and Jenny is marrying another. My son is lost to me. He paid too high a price to save me. If I knew where he was, I would turn myself in so that he could reclaim his life, no matter what Ben says.
I am the last of my line. My blood will not inherit this place.
My mind returns, again and again, to Jenny’s visit before she left town months ago. She was pale and trembling; she would start to speak as if to confide, then lapse into silence. It was all I could do to cling to the story that Dalton was dead.
She has been gone for seven months. I think back to cues that were there and wonder. Did Jenny bear my grandchild somewhere far away? Is there a piece of my son lost to us all?
And do I have the right to ask her? I could be wrong. It could be wishful thinking. Jenny was always an upright child, but she did love Dalton deeply, as he loved her. They could have yielded to natural urges. But once he vanished, would she not have told me or asked me for help?
Perhaps not. She was always a thoughtful girl, and she knew I was half out of my mind with grief.
Sam is a good young man, Dalton’s best friend. I have known for years that he loved Jenny, too, though she never had eyes for anyone but my son. If she had borne Dalton’s child, would Sam have taken it to his heart? And what would it do to their fledgling marriage if I bring my questions to light?
I must think on this longer, and pray for guidance. Jenny has suffered greatly. I do not wish to cause her more pain. I cannot offer her the comfort of hearing that Dalton is alive without torturing her with the knowledge that he is lost to us both. Ben told him he had to vanish and make a new life under a new name. Even Ben doesn’t know where he is now.
Ben is a good man who has helped me carry a heavy secret. He is happy for his Sam to be marrying Jenny. After all he has done for Dalton and me, do I have the right to destroy Sam’s happiness?
I do not know the answers. Dear Lord, guide me in the right path.
Maddie didn’t know what to think, how to feel. She flipped the diary open to the last page. It was dated a year earlier. She had been through the entire trunk. There was nowhere else to look for the answer to Rose’s questions.
Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. She might have a brother or sister out there somewhere. She might not be alone, after all. Her pulse scrambled.
Where were the answers? What would Boone say when she told him?
Oh, dear. Boone. If there had been a child of Jenny and Dalton’s, it would be his half-sibling, too.
Maddie leapt to her feet, ready to race downstairs to tell him—
She froze. Tell him what? Boone thought his mother an angel. Boone had had so much uproar in his life lately. Did she have the right to destroy his image of her, too, the one thing left pure and shining from his childhood?
Maddie knew only too well how it felt to suddenly find out that your parent wasn’t the person you thought. She couldn’t put Boone through that with so little evidence. She couldn’t tell Boone until she was sure. What she’d read was pure speculation on Rose’s part, guessing that her son had—
Maddie sat down heavily. Had fathered a child he’d never even known he had. With the woman he had loved first and best. Her eyes filled with tears. So much loss, so much pain. Even if he’d never known it, Maddie ached at one more example of all her father had sacrificed.
Then excitement stirred again. She might have a brother or sister—she couldn’t wait to find him or her. She leapt to her feet and prepared to race down to the telephone to call—
Whom? She had no one who would understand but Boone.
Then she remembered. Dev would be back. Dev would help her.
She had to keep this from Boone until she knew whether or not this child even existed. Then she would figure out a way to break the news.