“Bar crawl. Winery. Fish tacos,” Henry listed them out on his fingers.
Candice cackled. “No! I mean, maybe food later.”
“I know. You want to see Frank Delaware!” Lindsey tried.
Candice gave her a look that meant,don’t you dare.
“I want to go to the library,” Candice said.
Both Lindsey and Henry were immediately deflated.
“Sis, that isn’t how you get back out there,” Henry said. “People don’t go to the library anymore. You have to change your tactics.”
Candice rolled her eyes, then got up to take a shower and pull herself together. Reluctantly, Lindsey and Henry got ready as well, promising themselves and each other that they would celebrate properly after Candice did her thing at the library. Suddenly, it felt as though the three Vanberg siblings were in cahoots. It had never felt so good before.
During the driveto the public library, where all the records from the past few centuries of Vineyard living were kept, Candice updated Henry on everything they’d learned about their mother so far, including what Frank’s mother had said about Stella being a “ragamuffin.” About how she’d crawled out of a honky-tonk. “Frank’s mom was saying there was another woman who owned the Harbor House. He said maybe it was her idea to change Mom’s story when she got here? To say that she was from the Vineyard, that she’d been born here? But he said that everyone else knew the truth.”
Candice cut the engine in the parking lot of the library and turned to look at Henry in the back seat. His eyes stirred with questions. “She’s not a Vanberg?” He asked. “But that’s our last name. Mom gave us her last name because she said it was important to her.”
“I always wondered what Dad thought about that,” Lindsey said quietly.
“But why would she give us her fake name?” Henry demanded. “Candice, this doesn’t make any sense. Didn’t you say Frank’s mom has Alzheimer’s?”
“I just want to do a little digging,” Candice said. “I want to see who owned the Harbor House before Mom did.”
“Her parents! Our grandparents!” Henry said.
“What are their names?” Candice asked, cocking her head.
Henry stuttered, then went quiet. They knew nothing about their grandparents. Why had they never considered how strange that was before?
One of the librarians led them to the basement, where the Vineyard records were kept. A light bulb flickered in the corner,giving the space an eerie feel. The librarian pointed them to the files regarding house ownerships, who’d owned property on the Vineyard going back generations, and it took them no more than five minutes to discover the name of the woman who’d owned the Harbor House before Stella Vanberg.
“Greta Vanberg,” Henry read aloud. “Maybe that’s our grandmother’s name?”
“Maybe,” Candice said doubtfully, before digging deeper into the years of the house’s ownership. By the looks of things, Greta had purchased the house in 1946. On one of the ancient-looking contracts, she’d written herself as a “widow.” She’d also written her date and place of birth: April 18, 1920, Munich, Germany.
“We’re German!” Henry said.
“I don’t know,” Candice said again. “I really don’t think Greta is our grandmother. Mom was born in 1958. That would have made Greta nearly forty.”
“Women can still have babies at forty,” Lindsey said, narrowing her eyes.
“Okay. Well. If she did give birth to Mom, the certificate would be here, right?” Candice realized.
Henry popped over to the birth certificate area with incredible energy. He went back to 1958, rifling through the files, before shaking his head. “It’s not here,” he said.
Candice and Lindsey double- and triple-checked, just in case. But it was true.
Henry grimaced. “This is freaking me out.”
“I think we should learn everything we can about Greta,” Lindsey suggested. “When did she come to the United States?”
“And who was her husband?” Henry added.
“Maybe there’s a record somewhere,” Lindsey said.
It took a little while to find this. Eventually, they had to drag the librarian back downstairs to dig into old visas and old passport information. More than an hour after that, theydiscovered that Greta Vanberg had come to the United States in 1940, one year after Germany began the Second World War. The passport photo was black-and-white, showing a beautiful, frightened-looking woman of twenty.Her eyes were enormous. At the time, she was listed as married. But because she’d been married back in Germany, there was no marriage certificate.
