Almost Home (31 page)
Katherine turned away from the mirror. She didn't want
to look at herself. She didn't want to examine her feelings—not while the
memory of Zach was so fresh in her mind. She needed to refocus, to concentrate
on finding her father.
Now, what to do next? She could go back to Golden's or
she could check out the hardware store. The owner of the craft store, Louise
Peabody, had let it be known that Joel Davenport owned the hardware store and
had lived in Paradise all of his life and never married. Louise had gushed
about how nice Joel was and how sad that he didn't have a woman in his life.
She'd speculated that he'd had a love affair years ago that had ended tragically.
A love affair with her mother? Katherine wondered.
Before she could move, a knock came at her door.
Katherine went over to open it, expecting to see Maggie, but the woman standing
in the hall was Claire Stanton.
Wearing a black and white dress and matching jacket,
Claire looked like a woman having a day on the town, but her expression did not
match her outfit. Her skin was as white as her hair, making her blue eyes stand
out in stark contrast. Her lips were pursed tightly together and she held her black
purse in front of her chest as if it were a bulletproof jacket.
In fact, Claire Stanton looked shell-shocked, like she'd
stumbled over a dead body or seen a ghost.
"Mrs. Stanton. Are you all right?"
Claire looked at her searchingly, as if she were trying
to find some answers in the shape of Katherine's face. "You
do
look
familiar," she murmured.
Katherine felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck
begin to tingle. "What did you say?"
"May I come in?"
"Of course."
Katherine stepped aside and Claire walked into the
room, her gaze immediately darting to the bed, then to the dresser, finally
coming to rest on the hope chest in the corner. Claire put a hand to her heart
and began to sway. "It's true. Oh, my God, it's true."
Chapter
16
"
M
rs.
Stanton? Are you all right? Should I call a doctor
?" Katherine asked in alarm.
Claire didn't move. Her gaze remained fixed on the
chest as she struggled to breathe in and out. Katherine was halfway to the
phone when Claire's voice stopped her.
"The—the chest," Claire said, squeezing out
the words. "Where did you get it?"
Katherine followed her gaze to the chest, suddenly not
sure that she wanted to answer the question. Claire was looking at the chest as
if she'd seen it before, and that wasn't possible.
"Where did you get it?" Claire asked again.
"Why do you want to know?"
Claire pointed at the chest with a shaky but
determined finger. "Because that chest belonged to my daughter, Margaret.
It was mine before I gave it to her. And it was my grandmother's before that."
Katherine began shaking her head even before Claire
finished her sentence. "That's not possible. The chest belonged to my
mother."
"Your mother?" Claire almost choked out the
words. "Her name was Margaret?"
"No, it was Evelyn,"
Katherine said quickly. "Evelyn Jones Whitfield."
Katherine tried to infuse her words with confidence and truth, but Zach's
earlier comment about her mother's name sounding like an alias came back to
her.
"Evelyn Jones?" Claire sounded as dazed as
Katherine felt.
"That's right."
Claire sat down on the edge of the bed. She set her
purse on the coverlet and wrapped her arms around her waist, rocking back and
forth. Her gaze darted between Katherine and the chest, unable to settle in one
place.
Katherine found herself making the same jerky
movements as she tried to compute the facts, but they didn't add up. Claire's
gaze once again fixed on Katherine's face. "You have the same hairline,
the same rosy cheeks. Your hair is different, it's lighter. Margaret's was more
brown than blond. And her face was longer, narrow at the chin."
"Your daughter is no relation to me."
"That's what I keep telling myself, but…"
Claire's voice faded away as she turned her attention
back to the chest. She drew in a deep breath, gathering her courage. "Is
there a quilt in that chest?"
Katherine's heart skipped another beat. For a split
second she wanted to lie, to say no, but the anguish in Claire's blue eyes
compelled her to tell the truth. "Yes," she said, her voice barely a
whisper.
"May I see it?"
After a momentary hesitation, Katherine knelt in front
of the chest and lifted the lid. She pulled out the quilt inch by inch, foot by
foot, until the floor was covered with lilies of the valley and patchwork
squares of memories.
Claire looked at the quilt and began to cry, tears
running down her cheeks, sobs breaking past her lips, shoulders shaking with
overwhelming grief.
"Oh, my God," she murmured, falling to her
knees beside the quilt. "I never thought to see this again." She
picked up an edge of the quilt and held it against her cheek, soaking it with
her tears.
Katherine knew in that moment that the quilt belonged
to Claire, and the knowledge tore Katherine apart. She'd felt so secure wrapped
in the material, the scent of lavender wafting around her as she drifted to
sleep. Since she'd discovered the quilt, she'd felt like it belonged to her.
But now it was obvious that she was wrong. The quilt didn't belong to her or to
her mother. It belonged to Claire's daughter, to Margaret Stanton.
Claire's sobs began to slow down. Katherine reached
for the Kleenex box on the table behind her and handed it to Claire.
Finally Claire composed herself enough to speak. "It's
Margaret's quilt," she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue. "We
started it when she was born. I told you about the tradition here in
of the valley for the border because you can find them all over our property.
And this square here…"
She fingered a tiny piece of white satin. "It
came from the underskirt of Margaret's baptismal gown." She pointed to
another square, one covered with red gingham. "This came from her first
kindergarten dress. She looked so pretty in it, with her hair in pigtails and
her face scrubbed clean. I have a picture of her in this dress, holding an
enormous lunch box in her hands." Claire's eyes brimmed over with tears
once again. "Harry didn't want her to be hungry that first long day away
from us." She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh, God, it hurts so much."
Katherine didn't know what to say or do in the face of
Claire's raging pain. She knew what it felt like to lose someone. There were no
words that could take away the sorrow, and nowhere near enough time to get over
the loss.
Claire took a deep breath. "I didn't think I'd
ever see this quilt again. Where did you find this chest?"
"In my mother's attic. I thought it belonged to
her, but it must not have. Not if it's yours, your daughter's. They're two
different women." Katherine paused, feeling panicked in spite of her
belief that Evelyn Whitfield and Margaret Stanton were not the same person.
"Are they?" Claire asked, not sounding so
confident. "Margaret's middle name was
pregnant at the time. I expect her baby would have been born in November or
December of 1972. When were you born, Katherine?"
Katherine hesitated, then jumped to her feet. She
refused to follow Claire's logic. It didn't make sense, and she didn't want it
to make sense, because that would mean her mother had lied to her every single
day of her life.
"It doesn't matter when I was born. My mother was
Evelyn Jones Whitfield. She was born in
and her parents and all her other relatives are dead. She told me so, lots of
times, and I believed her. I still believe her."
Claire rose slowly to her feet. "When were you
born?"
Katherine looked up at the ceiling in despair, then
back at Claire. "
twenty-second, 1972
"What did your mother look like?"
"She had brown hair. She wore it short around her
ears."
"Did she wear glasses?"
"Contacts."
"Was there a tiny space between her two front
teeth?"
"Very tiny."
"Did she have a laugh that sounded like someone
had just run a hand down the piano keys?"
Katherine blinked back a wave of emotion. "I can't
do this. Don't make me do this. It's impossible."
"I thought so, too. Until
"
Katherine latched on to his name as if she were reaching for a life preserver. "Jackson
Tyler told you something?"
"He said you had Margaret's quilt. And you do."
"He also said I was
his
daughter."
Claire shook her head. "Margaret would have never
…
Well, she wouldn't have."
"He's a liar, a con artist. Even Zach told me
that," Katherine said desperately. "You can't believe a word
knows I have the quilt, then he must have snuck in here and taken a look. He's
a trespasser, too."
"Yes." Claire gave a small, uncertain shake
of her head. "And I don't understand, because Margaret died about six
years after she left here. I know because Harry sent someone to look for her.
And you said your mother died—"
"When I was twelve. See, they can't be the same
person. My mother is buried in
Hills
"And my daughter is buried in
Unless…"
Claire let the word hang in the air, growing in
importance the longer it remained there.
"Unless someone is lying," Katherine
whispered. "Unless one of those graves is empty."
"Don't say that," Claire said sharply. "My
husband wouldn't lie to me. He couldn't have."
"And my mother wouldn't lie to me. She couldn't
have."
"I have a photograph of Margaret," Claire
said abruptly. "In my purse. Where did I put it?"
Katherine picked up the black leather purse on the bed
and handed it to her.
Claire opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. She
flipped through the credit cards and photos, finally stopping. "This is
Margaret. The photograph was taken just a few weeks before she left." Claire
slipped the photo out of its plastic casing and handed it to Katherine. "Do
you recognize her? Is she your mother?"
Katherine hesitated. She was suddenly very afraid to
look.
"You
have
to look," Claire said. "I know it's difficult, but please."
Katherine gazed into Claire's
eyes. "You don't understand. If my mother was your daughter, then
everything I know about her is a lie."
Claire put her hand over
Katherine's hand, the picture touching both of their fingers, burning them with
the truth.
Finally Katherine looked
down, tears blurring her vision so that she had to blink three times before she
could focus on the photograph, before she could truly see the woman's face.
What she saw ripped her heart in two.
"It's her," she
whispered. "It's my mother."
Katherine sat down on the
bed, the photograph
held tightly in her
fingers. The young woman in the photo stood in the secret garden, laughing at
the camera, waving her finger at whoever was taking the picture. There was no
mistaking her mother's smile or her teeth or the shape of her face. The woman
in the photograph—the woman Claire called Margaret Stanton—was also Evelyn
Jones Whitfield.
Claire sat down next to Katherine, staring at the
photo with the same intensity, the same wonder, the same disbelief. The minutes
ticked by in silence, nervous, bewildering silence.