“My pleasure. I wanted to let you know that I was only able to find one mention of Bonnie Byrne in the back issues of our paper. Her birth announcement.”
“I see,” Leah said, trying to hide her disappointment.
“I was also able to find just one mention of Ian O’Reilly.”
“Oh?”
“It’s from thirty-some years ago. It ran on the Gallivanting About page we had back then, where we’d publish pictures of people and events from around the county. All I have is a photo and a caption.”
“I’d love to see both the birth announcement and photo, if possible.”
“I have pictures of them loaded into an email, ready to go. If you’ll provide your email address, I’ll shoot them straight over.”
Leah supplied her email address and profuse thanks.
She opened her email app and waited for it to download new email. Several things populated, but nothing from theCalhoun County Post.
Chewing the edge of her lip, she tried again.
Still no.
And again.
This time, an email from the newspaper appeared. It took a few seconds for the birth announcement to load.
Sean and Ellen Byrne announce the birth of their second daughter, Bonnie Theresa Byrne. She was born on January 20th and weighed seven pounds, eight ounces.
The only new piece of information provided: Bonnie’s birth weight.
The second attachment, a photograph, showed a group of at least twenty people of various ages.
Sean and Ellen Byrne hosted a family reunion this past weekend to celebrate the graduation from college of their grandson, Ian O’Reilly (center in the above photo).
Leah turned her phone horizontal so the image filled the entire screen. The man in the center, Ian, smiled out from the picture with gentle eyes, handsome young features, a lean build. He appeared full of life. Hopeful.
A few of Ian’s elderly relatives sat on folding chairs in front. The rest stood. Surely Bonnie had been present for a reunion held in her son’s honor. Carefully, Leah assessed the faces of the women in the photo who were the right age to have been Ian’s mother. Several fit the bill. Unfortunately, even if one of them was Bonnie, she had no way of knowing which one—
Except no. That wasn’t right.
Because ... she did. She did know which one was Bonnie.
Surprise rolled into Leah like a heavy boulder.
One of the middle-aged women pictured here had blond-gray hair cut into severe horizontal bangs with straight sides. An assertive nose and eyes that tipped downward at the outer edges.
The woman in this picture was younger than the woman Leah knew, but unmistakably recognizable, nonetheless. The woman in this picture, the one whose hand rested on the shoulder of her son, Ian O’Reilly, was the woman Leah had long known as Tess Coventry.
Sebastian came to a stop next to his mother’s grave.
Her small rectangular marker lay flat against the earth.Denise Marie Grantand the dates of her birth and death had been engraved into dull black stone.
He’d stood here just three times before.
The first time, the day they’d buried her. Vaguely, as if the scene had come from a movie he’d watched decades ago, he recalled her coffin lowering into the ground. Then someone tossing dirt on top of her.
He knew he’d worn a plaid suit Mrs. King had given him that had been too small and itchy. He knew their old lady neighbor and his social worker and his teacher and several strangers had been there.
However, he didn’t know who’d paid for her funeral, burial, plot, and marker. As a kid, the expenses hadn’t crossed his mind. Now that he lived in an adult world full of price tags, it shamed him that he had no idea whom to reimburse.
