She looked at me for a long moment. “He’s your cousin.” She paused and backtracked. “Well, I mean, he’s your brother, of course. He will always be your brother. But he’s not technically, biologically, my child—or Daddy’s.”
She paused, and I sat stock-still, like if I didn’t move, I could pretend she’d never said anything. My breath felt short, and my heart like it would burst inside my chest.
She got a second wind, saying, “Aunt Tilley was pregnant when Robert died—I never could understand why the hell she couldn’t just marry him and be done with it—and she just lost her mind, Amelia. Completely lost her mind. Mama and Daddy just hid her away. I hid away with her, and once he was born it was really clear that she couldn’t take care of him, and it all just sort of…”
My little worries suddenly seemed extremely trite. “Mom, my God,” I said, sounding as furious as I felt. “How could you do that?”
“Don’t come at me,” she said, getting defensive. “You have no idea what I have been through,” she practically hissed. “Atfirst, I was just helping her out, keeping him until she could get back on her feet. But as the weeks turned to months and the months to years, he became a part of me.”
I shook my head. “For God’s sake, Mother. He is herchild.”
She gave me the stoniest look I’d ever seen and said, “He is not. Robby ismychild. And that’s what you might never get the chance to understand. I didn’t carry him or give birth to him. I didn’t know what to do with a baby. But once I was the one taking care of him, rocking him to sleep at night, staying up when he had a fever, when I was the one he called ‘mama’…” She trailed off, wiping her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to take him away from my sister, but that boy deserved a stable home; he deserved a mother who didn’t think she was Queen Elizabeth ninety percent of the time. I could give him that, and so I did.”
The way she said it, it seemed so simple. So logical. But it was anything but. I had thought it was Tilley all this time, but maybe my mother was the crazy one.
“God, Amelia. You can’t imagine it. All the doctors, all the treatments, all the medications, all the false hope, all these years and years that I’ve tried to bring her back…”
Tears gathered in my eyes. For me, Aunt Tilley had just alwaysbeen. I’d never really considered the toll that all of this had taken on my poor mother, as embarrassed as I am to admit it.
She cleared her throat and composed herself. “That’s why Tilley has always lived with us. She couldn’t take care ofRobby, but I didn’t want her to have to be without him. She gave me the most important gift I have ever received—besides you.”
“Wait. Robby knows, right?”
She bit her lip but didn’t say a word.
“Oh my God, Mom.” I got up, pacing up and down the dock. “Are you kidding me? My brother doesn’t know that you and Dad aren’t his parents? I mean, am I your real kid?” In that moment, I almost wished that she would say no.
“You’re being so dramatic, Amelia. Sit down.”
I laughed. “Dramatic? I’m beingdramatic? I just found out my brother isn’t even my brother!” I shout-whispered.
“Don’t you ever say that again,” she said, low and mean. She meant it.
I sighed and sat back down. “Don’t you worry about it coming out?”
“Oh, I worry about it every day.”
“And?”
“And I just hope I’m dead when they figure it out.”
I was so exasperated now. “So that’s your grand plan? Hope you’re dead? Good Lord, Mother.” I was up and pacing again. “Why would you even tell me this? I wish I didn’t know. I’m never going to be able to be normal around Robby again.”
She took my hand, and I wanted to yank it away, but I knew she hadn’t meant to be so horrible. She’d meant to protect her sister, to protect her nephew-turned-son. And, well, she had. No one could argue that Tilley could have raised a child on her own. She certainly could not have. And Robbyhad turned out smart and handsome and kind and happy. He had made a great life for himself. What shocked me most of all was my dad going along with it.
“Wait. Does Olivia know?” She gave me a skeptical look. Of course Olivia knew.
“Honey, look. I was scared to death when all this happened, and at that point, I never imagined that I would raise Robby as my own. I just figured we’d have him for a few months until Tilley got over whatever was going on with her and then we would move forward. All of us. But what I didn’t understand was that, from those first days, I was madly in love with that child.”
“Mom…”
“No, Amelia. He wasmyson.Mine.I didn’t understand how a person could feel that way about a child that wasn’t technically theirs. But it was as natural as breathing, the way he became mine. Until all this 23andMe mess, I never even really thought about it.”
My mouth was hanging open. “So you mean to tell me that people in Cape Carolina just believed that you had hidden away casually and suddenly appeared with a baby no one knew you’d been pregnant with?”
“Oh Lord, no. But then he turned one, and he looked so much like me that the speculation sort of died down. There were new scandals. People forgot. I’m sure every now and then someone talks about it over a game of bridge at the country club. But, by and large, when no new information ever emerged, people just let it go.”
“What about Gran and C-Pop?”
