Coincidences happened.
But then Maisie reached into the small pocket sewn into the front of her dress.
“I have Mommy.”
She pulled out a folded photograph.
Evelyn’s world changed.
The photograph was worn along its edges from being handled repeatedly.
It showed Maisie sitting on the lap of a woman outside a small brick house.
The woman appeared to be perhaps thirty.
Long chestnut-brown hair.
Gray-green eyes.
Heart-shaped face.
A narrow chin.
A smile slightly crooked on the right side.
Evelyn stared.
James made a sound beside her.
Rachel covered her mouth.
The woman in the photograph looked exactly like Evelyn.
Not similar.
Not approximately.
Exactly.
If someone had told Evelyn the picture had been taken of herself three years earlier, she might have believed them.
There were differences.
The woman’s hair was longer.
She wore almost no makeup.
A faint scar crossed her right eyebrow.
But the face was Evelyn’s face.
Maisie pointed proudly.
“Mommy.”
Nobody spoke.
Evelyn took the photograph with shaking fingers.
On the back, written in blue ink, were four words.
Nora and Maisie, April 2025.
Evelyn read them twice.
Then a third time.
James whispered, “You have a sister?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“I think I would know.”
Rachel took the photograph carefully.
“Oh my God.”
Evelyn turned toward her.
“What?”
Rachel looked guilty.
“Nothing.”
“No. What?”
Rachel hesitated.
“When you were in college, you had that old picture of your mom when she was pregnant.”
“So?”
Rachel looked at the woman in the photograph.
“She was huge.”
Evelyn stared.
“Rachel.”
“I’m just saying.”
“She had me.”
“I know.”
“One baby.”
“I know.”
Evelyn felt suddenly cold.
There was only one person in the building who could answer the question forming in her mind.
Her mother.
Margaret Hart had spent the morning moving through the Beaumont Estate like a general preparing for war.
At sixty-one, she remained strikingly elegant. Her dark-blonde hair was perfectly styled, her pale-blue mother-of-the-bride gown had been altered three separate times, and not one detail of Evelyn’s wedding had escaped her attention.
When Margaret entered the private bridal lounge, she was talking before she noticed Maisie.
“The guests are starting to ask questions, and Reverend Collins wants to know whether—”
She stopped.
Maisie sat on a sofa holding a juice box.
Evelyn stood beside the window.
James leaned against the wall.
Rachel had the photograph.
Margaret’s face changed.
It happened so quickly that anyone who did not know her might have missed it.
Evelyn did not.
Her mother went pale.
Not confused.
Not curious.
Terrified.