“I became pregnant before Daniel and I were married.”
“That wouldn’t exactly shock me.”
“It shocked my father.”
“Grandpa thought sleeveless dresses were rebellion.”
Despite everything, James almost smiled.
Margaret did not.
“He threatened to cut me off completely.”
Evelyn shrugged.
“But you married Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And Grandpa eventually got over it.”
“No.”
The answer landed strangely.
Margaret looked toward the closed door.
“I was pregnant with twins.”
Evelyn forgot how to breathe.
James stood away from the wall.
“What?”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“Identical girls.”
Evelyn stared at her.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
“You told me I was born two weeks early.”
“You were.”
“You told me Dad was there.”
“He was.”
“You told me—”
Her voice broke.
“You told me I was your only child.”
Margaret began crying.
“I know.”
Evelyn looked at the photograph.
Then at her mother.
“Nora.”
Margaret nodded.
Evelyn felt as if she might be sick.
“What happened to her?”
Margaret covered her mouth.
For several seconds, she could not speak.
Then the story came out.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Arthur Caldwell had controlled everything.
Margaret’s tuition.
Her housing.
A trust left by her grandmother.
Even Daniel’s first job after college had come through a company connected to Arthur.
When Margaret became pregnant, Arthur threatened to remove her from the family entirely.
At first she did not care.
Daniel did not either.
They planned to marry.
Then the pregnancy became complicated.
Margaret was hospitalized at thirty-three weeks.
The babies were delivered early.
Two girls.
Evelyn first.
Nora seven minutes later.
Nora was smaller.
She spent several weeks in neonatal intensive care.
Evelyn went home first.
Margaret remembered the exhaustion.
The fear.
Her father’s constant presence.
Arthur told them they were drowning financially.
He told Daniel he would lose his job.
He told Margaret the hospital bills would bankrupt them.
Then he offered a solution.
A private adoption.
One child.
A family he knew.
Margaret refused.