My mother.
No one spoke.
Elena reached for Lucas’s arm.
“Oh, Lucas.”
He stared at the paper.
“My adoption was arranged by your mother.”
I struggled to understand.
“She knew your birth mother.”
“Or knew of her.”
“Why wouldn’t she tell anyone?”
Douglas’s expression had changed.
“What?”
I knew that look.
He had remembered something.
“Douglas.”
He stared at the ledger.
“Your mother came to see me once before the wedding.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“In 1986.”
“You never told me that.”
“I forgot about it until now. Or maybe I convinced myself it didn’t matter.”
“What did she want?”
“She asked me whether Margaret and I wanted children.”
Lucas went completely still.
“When?”
Douglas squeezed his eyes shut, searching through memory.
“Late November. Maybe early December.”
Lucas was born the following September.
Nine months later.
“What did you tell her?” I asked.
“I told her it was none of her business.”
