Best,
Frankie
* * *
Dear Frankie,
I think I’m the one who’s hit the jackpot. How about tomorrow at three your time? I keep late hours since I dance late.
Best,
Clara
* * *
Frankie heard the sound of Charlie puttering around his workshop. He’d offered to be right by her side when she made the call to her sister, but this was something she needed to do on her own.
With trembling fingers, she dialed Clara’s number. The ring seemed to echo the beating of her heart, each tone a reminder of the years they had spent apart.
After what seemed like the longest ten seconds of her life, a gentle melodic voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, Clara?” She choked on her words, a mixture of tears and joy. “It’s me. Frankie.”
Clara inhaled sharply. “I know we planned to have this call and that we’ve exchanged a few emails, but it’s still so surreal to me.”
“I know exactly how you feel.” A few tears flowed freely down her cheeks. “I’ve spent so much time wondering if I’d ever find you.”
“Well, now you have. And I’m not going anywhere.” Clara’s voice was filled with raw emotion.
Frankie clung to the phone as if it were an extension of her body. “There are so many things I want to ask you. I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Likewise. I want to know everything about you, about your life, about the years we’ve missed.”
Frankie took a deep breath. “Um . . . I guess I’ll start off. So I’m twenty-seven. I was adopted when I was a couple months old by a single dad.”
“He sounds like an amazing man to be single and become a father.”
“You have no idea.” Frankie found herself starting to calm down. “Dad was older when he adopted me and had recently retired from the Navy.”
Clara whistled. “He’ll get along with my husband swimmingly. He was in the British Army.”
Frankie and Clara took turns asking questions about one another and sharing memories of their childhoods. She learned that unfortunately, Clara’s adoptive parents had been in an accident when she was a teenager. Her best friend’s parents had taken her in. She also learned that although Clara had grown up in Seattle, she’d spent most of her adult life divided between LA and London.
“Clara, I’m dying to know . . . What’s this big secret you alluded to in your email?”
“Are you sitting down?” her sister asked.
“Yes,” Frankie answered slowly. Her knees were to her chest. The phone was on speaker.
“Promise you won’t freak out or panic on me?”
Her pulse rate increased. “Um . . . okay. I’ll try.”
“Okay. Here it goes.” She heard Clara gulp. “When I married David . . . I became a part of a family that isn’t exactly normal by any stretch of the imagination.”
She frowned.What could Clara possibly mean by that?“Okay . . .”
“David has a title.”
