Grandma shook her head, made a motion for him to turn it over.
“‘Glenda Harrington and cousin Matthew Lake.Lake Family Reunion, 1960,’” he read aloud.“My dad, but the girl… she looks just like pictures of my dad’s sister.Not some Glenda,” he muttered.He looked up at Glenda.“Not you, but you do look sort of like Aunt Stevie.”
Grandma made a couple signs, and with the picture’s label, Jill thought she put it together.“Matthew and Stevie are Grandma—Glenda’s cousins, maybe… second cousins?”she offered, and Grandma nodded in confirmation.It still didn’t quite make sense to Jill.“Your maiden name isn’t Lake,” she said to Grandma.
Grandma signedgrandmother.Hergrandmother’smaiden name was Lake.Jill didn’t knowanythingabout Grandma’s family, and she’d never really thought of that before.
Until this moment.But it hit her now.Grandma never brought up anything before she’d met her husband.Dad’s dad.Even Dad didn’t talk about family beyond his parents.She didn’t remember him telling stories of grandparents or cousins or anything.
But Grandma was going to Lake family reunions when she was a girl?
“So, Bo’s real connection is to the Harringtons?”Aly asked, clearly as confused as Jill felt.
Glenda shook her head this time.Then she pulled out the folded pieces of paper and handed them to Jill.She signedRead it to them.
Jill looked down at the papers, trying to hide the fact her hands shook.“Uh, Grandma typed this out all morning.I guess she wants me to… read it to you guys.”
She gave one glance at Grandma, who gave a go-ahead gesture, then Jill forced herself to read carefully and clearly to a room full of people who wanted answers.
“‘Twenty-five years ago, Marie Bennet came to me with a problem,’” Jill read.Marie Bennet.The brothers’ mother.“‘A problem I promised her I’d never tell anyone about.I don’t break this promise lightly.’”
Jill’s heart was hammering in her chest.She didn’t want to read this.Didn’t wantthis, but… Well, it fell to her anyway.And maybe that was best.Everyone else in this room was traumatized by somethingBennet.
Except her.
“‘I could have kept Marie’s secret,’” Jill continued.“‘Would have, but if what Detective Hayes told Sam is true, and there’s some chance Benjamin’s lawyer knows about Bo, I don’t have a choice.The goal has always been to protect Bo.’”
Jill snuck a look at Bo, who was still staring at the picture Glenda had given him.His eyebrows were drawn together, and he didn’t seem to fully breathe.
But Jill had to focus on the words.Get this out for everyone waiting.“‘Twenty-five years ago, Marie came to me for my help.It wasn’t the first time.It wouldn’t be the last.This time, she was pregnant and didn’t want to be.’”Oh,Jesus.
“Wait,” Cal said.“You’re telling me…”
“Let her finish,” Aly said, reaching out and gripping Cal’s arm with one hand.Landon’s with the other.“Go on, Jill.Get through the whole thing.We need all the information before we… react.”
Jill had to clear her throat, but she kept reading.
“‘She kept it from everyone.Even tried to keep it from Ben, but eventually he did find out.She didn’t want to bring another child into that house.So we came up with a plan.Luckily, I’d done some midwife work in my early days out here, and when Marie had the baby, she did so at my cabin.Without Ben knowing.She told Ben she’d had a miscarriage, and I confirmed it.Made sure he believed it.And I made sure to get the baby far, far away from Marietta, Montana, and Benjamin Bennet’s reach.’”
“I’m… the baby.The baby she lied about?”Bo asked, looking at Jill, but Jill looked helplessly at Grandma.
Glenda nodded, pointed to Jill.
She had to keep reading.“‘We thought we’d done a good job.We never knew how, but a few years later Ben found out the baby was alive, told Marie he was going to find him.Marie believed he would or could.So we had to make the boy disappear before he did.Really disappear this time, with no connection to us.Neither one of us could be the one to go to him, take him somewhere new.Ben was too close to the truth.We managed to have the family caring for him get him on a train, and my cousin Matthew was supposed to pick him up in Omaha.Take him home, let the boy disappear without a trace.
“‘But something happened on the train ride.I don’t know what.Bo got separated from the people who were supposed to help us.Him.It took some time, but my cousin Matthew finally tracked him down, after all that hubbub about the John Doe child in Iowa, and he and his wife did what Marie and I had initially planned.They adopted him.’”
“I don’t understand,” Bo said.“I don’t…” He looked around the room at the men who looked so much like him.“Why would she send me away if she had you three here?”
“I’m guessing it had something to do with the abusive, murdering asshole our dad is,” Cal said.His hands were shoved into his pockets.He didn’t look pale or like he was falling apart.
He looked grimly resigned to this new truth.
This horrible, horrible new truth.
Grandma took Jill’s arm, made some more signs.
Jill felt like she was existing in another universe.“Um, she’s asking… Bo, who sent you here?”
