“Exactly. Turns out watching someone play pianoforte is dead boring, and now he’s vexed with me, as Jane would say. I didn’t think it was the time to mention that I bought tickets for Wyatt and me to attend a concert tonight.”
“What kind of concert?”
“Glee singers accompanied by the harp. Jane would be so proud.”
“Mmm.” Poor non-musically-inclined, non-Jane-Austen-inclined Wyatt.
“So Wyatt’s vexed with me, and I’m vexed with Mom for having a first husband she never remembered to mention.”
A black-haired girl with a tattoo on her neck brought Genevieve’s latte and Natasha’s tea.
They’d swirled a leaf design into the foam atop Genevieve’s drink. She took a sip. It tasted hot and strong. Milky, too, with just the right amount of sweetness. Perfection in a cup. “This thing with Mom is crazy pants,” Genevieve said.
“I mean,what in the world?” Their discovery was likely hitting Natasha extra hard because Natasha hadn’t expected Genevieve to uncover anything. “How could she have married someone and then covered it up?”
“With the cooperation of others, I’m guessing.”
“Like Dad. He must know about this. Right?”
“I think he must.” Genevieve had turned this question over and over in her mind since yesterday. “The fact that they had a small wedding in his hometown points to that.”
“Everyone on Mom’s side of the family must also know,” Natasha said. “They almost certainly attended her first wedding.”
“Right.”
“But they never once said anything about it to us.”
“I suppose that’s because Mom asked them not to.”
She and Natasha had been very close to their mom’s parents. But because Caroline had no siblings, there’d been no Herrington first cousins to grow up with. Mom’s larger family gathered yearlyfor a picnic reunion, and Mom occasionally hosted a relative of hers at their house for a meal or an overnight stay. But Genevieve wasn’t connected with any of them the way she was with Nanny and Pop, and her cousins, aunts, and uncles on her dad’s side.
Genevieve opened the photos app on her phone and handed it over so Natasha could survey the pictures she’d taken the day before.
Natasha scrolled through the images, forehead knit.
Genevieve cast a look around for Sam. She’d yet to catch a glimpse of him.
Natasha slid the phone back to Genevieve.
“What are we doing to do?” Genevieve asked.
“The way I see it, we have two options. We can take these findings to Mom and Dad as soon as possible, today even. Or we can do more digging.”
“What’s the advantage of more digging?”
“My experience as an attorney has taught me that it’s unwise to wade into a situation without first learning everything there is to learn. We know Mom was widowed before she married Dad, but we don’t know what that might have to do with the weird letter you received.”
“I know. I don’t get it. The letter indicated that Mom and Dad had done something shameful. But what’s shameful about remarrying years after your first husband’s death?”
“Nothing. So right now, I feel like our information is very incomplete. We’ve simply learned that Mom has been lying to us by omission—”
“And probably Dad, too,” Genevieve added.
“If we confront them, I’m worried they’ll only confess to the information we can substantiate. Nothing more.”
“And if they actually did do something shameful, and we tell them what we’ve learned, they might even destroy any remaining evidence.”
“And we still won’t have a clue about what really went down back in the eighties.”
