“I am upset,” Evelyn blurted out. “But I don’t want to tattletale and…”
Luke furrowed his thick, dark eyebrows, and his eyes narrowed to slits. “Stop beating around the bush! You need to tell me what happened. Right now!” he demanded firmly.
Evelyn turned her back to him, which was clearly an evasive move. “I have a bad feeling about Madelaine,” she said, which completely took him by surprise.
“What? Why? I thought you two got along so well?”
“Well, we do. But today, in the store, and even on the way there, she was acting very strange. Heck, she has been acting weird all day.”
Luke listened intently.
“She’s been stalling all morning!” she complained. “She even managed to delay the trip until we had to go make lunch, and then you came home early, and she stalled again when she went back into the kitchen to prepare your meal.”
“Which was very nice of her,” Luke added.
“Yes, but I wanted to leave early in the morning, right after breakfast, so that we would be back by lunch. Instead, she was doing all kinds of things just to delay it, so that we couldn’t go.”
“Maybe she was nervous?” Luke offered, not really concerned about what he heard. “Amnesia could cause her to feel uncertain…”
“Yes. I understand that,” she interrupted him. “But that wasn’t it.” Evelyn turned back around to him and looked him straight in the eyes. “I was just finishing the order at the store when she started pushing me to get out of there, saying that she was too hot, and that she couldn’t breathe…”
Evelyn’s face almost looked guilty as she said it, but only for a second. “I was counting the coins when she suddenly acted panicked for no apparent reason, almost dragging me out of the store.”
Luke nodded as he listened. This kind of behavior sounded quite odd indeed. Hearing about Madelaine behaving like this gave him pause.
“I tried to talk to her on our way back, but she wouldn’t say anything. She wouldn’t explain what had happened, or why she’d acted that way. I have never seen her like this before. This wasn’t normal. I never thought I would say this, but I got the unsettling feeling that she might not have been truthful with us.”
Luke looked at her with renewed curiosity. “What would make you say that, Evelyn?”
“Well… I don’t know. I just didn’t think she was sincere when she told me she didn’t feel well. It just felt off, somehow.” Evelyn paused for a minute. ”I don’t think that she’s a bad person. But don’t you find it odd that she can remember Simon, but not Belle? She remembers you and Caleb, but nothing else of the incident. Isn’t that weird to you?”
Luke stroked his beard, which he often did when he was processing information. “Actually, I did ask the doctor this exact question. Apparently, amnesia is not a clear-cut thing, and it is very possible that she might only remember parts of what happened.”
Evelyn lowered her head, wringing her hands. “It’s just so strange to me that she seems to be so scared to go into town, if it could help her remember things. To me, it feels like she’shiding something. And if I’m being completely honest here,” she spoke a little quieter as she looked back up into his eyes, “I don’t believe that she truly suffers from memory loss of any kind. I’ve watched her, especially the way she is with Belle, and I didn’t get the feeling that she didn’t remember the little girl. There were a couple of incidents where she said something to Belle about how they ‘used to do things back home’ and ‘how she liked it’…”
Luke had to admit that the things Evelyn was saying didn’t sound all that unreasonable. After he spoken to the doctor just two days ago, he had decided that Madelaine might just need more time to recover. Why would Madelaine want to stay in his house, with strangers, if she actually remembered that she had a home to go back to? That part did not make much sense to him.
Evelyn stared at him, clearly waiting for some kind of reaction, so Luke nodded with a deep sigh. “Thank you for telling me this. I’m not dismissing what you’ve told me, and I will certainly keep it in mind, but for now, try to be more understanding of her condition, and don’t put too much stock in her behavior today. Maybe she was just very anxious and scared about meeting all those people—not knowing if she’d remember or not and possibly embarrassing herself if she didn’t.”
Then Evelyn blurted out, “What if these precious children aren’t her siblings, after all?”
“Have Simon or Belle ever mentioned anything that would make you think that?” Luke asked cautiously. He couldn’tdeny that he himself had thought about this possibility when they first met.
Evelyn was silent for a minute as she contemplated his question, but she seemed to come up empty and finally shook her head. “I just love those two precious babies so much, I don’t wish anything bad to happen to them.” Luke suspected the sudden moisture in her eyes stemmed from the fact that her deepest desire to have a family of her own had been denied to her for all these years.
He pulled Evelyn into his arms and gave her a well-meaning hug. “Don’t be silly. She hasn’t stolen them. Simon told me himself, many times, that Madelaine was his sister. And if you really look at them all, it’s kind of undeniable. You are overthinking all of this. Why don’t you leave the detective work to the professionals, like me?”
Evelyn pulled away from him, looking embarrassed. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t think so harshly of her. She’s been through a lot. Now, I feel bad for saying all those things,” she admitted.
Luke squeezed his cousin's shoulders. “I understand. And I really do appreciate you telling me about all your concerns so openly. All I want to know is the truth, so your concerns are all valid to me. This situation is difficult for all of us, but we have to be patient. The truth will always come out, one way or another. Trust me on this.”
“You’re right. I overreacted. Thank you, Luke. For putting my head on straight. You are the best cousin,” she said with a sheepish smile.
“I’m your only cousin,” Luke jibed, winking at her as he turned to walk out of the kitchen.
***
When they sat down to eat, Madelaine once again asked for a prayer, which Luke dismissed with a deep sigh as he began loading his plate with carrots and beans. Still feeling slightly embarrassed about his outburst and not wanting to be seen as a monster in front of the children again, he decided to let it slide and began to eat.
