“I’ve done well enough in my career.”
She shook her head. “I’m not talking financially, Rae. I’m talking in matters of the heart. In that regard, you folks don’t do so well. All the generations of McDonald women have suffered terrible losses.”
“True.”
Margaret finished off her cookie and reached for another. “You dating anyone?”
I laughed, surprised by her forwardness. “No.”
“Not ever?”
“Not in a long time,” I said. “It’s odd that the McDonalds were so unlucky in love. I’m not a matchmaker, but for several generations we have had a knack for introducing people who went on to find love. That seems a bit odd.”
She slapped her hand to her thigh. “I knew you were a matchmaker!”
“I’m not a matchmaker.”
“You keep telling yourself that. But I’ve got your number.”
“I have no number.”
“I’ve gotten to know your family pretty well. Excellent journalists and scribes. From what I’ve gleaned, love isn’t your friend.”
“Perhaps we’re smart women who simply make bad choices.”
“Generation after generation. Come on,” She finished off her cookie and dusted the crumbs from her hands. “What are the odds that ten generations of women would struggle with happiness so much?”
“Ah, I think we’re back to the witch bottles. Are you saying we’re cursed?”
“The Shires called their ailment a curse.”
“They suffer from mental illness. Genetics are not curses.”
“That’s what Addie used to say before her witch bottle broke.”
Relaxing back in my chair, I stared at the spot where they’d found the witch bottle. “So it all goes back to those bottles.”
“Appears so,” Margaret said, “Addie told me that Lisa brought an old picture by the salvage yard. Dated 1968. In the picture were Grace, Amelia, Fiona, and your mother.”
“Really?”
“And you know what Grace said?”
Again she paused, ever the performer. “What?”
“Grace said your mom, who was about eighteen, saw a young guy passing by the yard and asked him to come inside and help move a heavy piece. That guy was Robert Murphy. He saw Amelia and was smitten right away. They were married six months later.”
“Mom, the matchmaker.”
“Also super weird that Fiona was in the picture. Amelia is with her birth mother and half sister and never knew she was in the middle of her own family reunion,” she said. “Amelia found a witch bottle that day in the yard. It’s the one we found in Lisa’s basement over the summer. It’s all so full circle it gives me goose bumps.”
“Lots of coincidences.”
Licking the tip of a finger, she flipped through her notebook pages. “I got the DNA test results back.”
“That was very fast.”
“I have friends who helped me get the work done quickly.”
My mood had been somber when she arrived, but Margaret McCrae had a way of lightening the load. “Tell me what you found.”
She tapped her finger on her dark, almost illegible handwriting. “All three families share similar genetic markers.”
“All three? I wasn’t expecting that.”
“The Shires and McDonalds seem to originate from the same genetic line.”
“Meaning Faith and her twin sons?”
“Yes. Addie is descended from Marcus and you from Patrick. I truly believe now that Faith’s son became Patrick McDonald, and Faith and the McDonalds never told anyone. It would explain why Faith never left that farm.”
I’d not given Faith much thought since Margaret had brought her to my attention, but now I wanted to know more. We shared the same ache, the same loss.
“And you have nothing else on Faith?” I asked.
“Patience speaks often of the witch, but Patience died in 1770, thirteen years before Faith passed.”
“What does Patience say about her?”
“That women from town still came to see her. Faith was very close to Patience’s daughter, Hanna, whom she practically raised.”
“And Patience’s husband?”
“Mr. McDonald died a few months before Faith.”
“So they were here at the house alone for thirteen years.”
Margaret grinned. “And he never remarried.”
“Do you think there was something between them?”
Margaret shrugged. “Sure makes sense, but who knows.”
“Funny that Patience’s letters would survive. If Mr. McDonald didn’t want the world to know Patrick wasn’t his biological son, I would think he’d have destroyed them.”
“Very likely he never knew about them. And if Faith knew, she would have saved them to prove Patrick was her son Cullen and Marcus’s fraternal twin.”
Shaking my head, I asked, “What about Lisa’s genetic markers?”
“Would you believe she’s related to the McCraes?”
“How?”
“That, I don’t know yet. But rest assured, I’ll figure it out.”
“Is there anyone in Alexandria who’s not related?”
Margaret laughed. “Maybe one or two people.”
March 17, 1769
My Dearest Children,
The farmer’s wife no longer writes her letters and she remains bed ridden. She rarely speaks, and when she does, it’s always about Patrick. As much as I hate the lie, I see that the boy will have far more than I could ever give him. Marcus, the oldest of my boys by minutes, will take over his own father’s lands when he turns eighteen this year. He now lives in Alexandria, where he apprentices for the owner of Gadsby’s Tavern. Patrick is away at school and will go to the university in Williamsburg to study the law.
—F
Chapter Sixteen
Rae McDonald
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 1:00 P.M.
This morning, I had risen early and was restless. After my morning run and my client appointments, I still couldn’t calm my thoughts. I decided to go see Michael’s birth father on a long shot he might know something. We hadn’t seen each other in over sixteen years. At our last meeting we were just kids, and it had been awkward.
Of course, I’d kept tabs on him over the years. We didn’t speak, but I felt a need to know how he was doing. He was the other half of the boy, and whatever genetics he had, the boy shared. A year older than I, Dan had finished college at Virginia Tech and gone on to become an engineer and join the family firm in Fairfax County. He married. Had two more children. Girls. No boys. But we didn’t talk or communicate, and I had no idea if he’d ever thought about the boy or me.
Now, I needed to see him. I needed to talk to him and tell him about my meeting with the boy. I needed him to acknowledge that Michael’s birth, which had changed me so deeply, had left some kind of impression on him. Something. Anything.
I found the engineering offices in Fairfax easily enough and parked. The building his company owned was made of brick and looked as old money as his family had been. There was a time I would have been terrified by all this raw emotion, but now I didn’t care who I upset or how I felt.
I needed to know.
Inside the lobby, I walked to the receptionist with my shoulders back. She was young and pretty and wore a blue dress. When she looked up at me, the smile reached her expressive blue eyes. “Can I help you?” she asked.
Quickly, I shored up the ice, hoping it would protect me a little longer. “I’m here to see Dan Chesterfield.”
“Is he expecting you?”
“Yes,” I lied. “My name is Dr. Rae McDonald. We grew up together in Alexandria.”
Let the name from the past jostle him. Let it upset his day. If only just a little. I needed to know I wasn’t alone in this boa
t.
She cradled the phone under her chin as she pressed buttons. “I’ll buzz him.”
“Thank you.”
I didn’t sit but turned and moved to the window. The view wasn’t spectacular. It was a busy side street that butted up against the parking lot. At one o’clock, the traffic was already growing heavy and would make the trip home twice as long.
Suddenly, my reasons for coming seemed silly and selfish. In fact, I felt foolish. What did I hope to prove by coming?
“Rae?”
I turned at the sound of his voice. He was as tall as I remembered, but that thick hair had thinned just a little and his face was rounder. He wore a crisp, monogrammed white shirt, red tie, and suit pants that looked custom tailored. He also wore a wedding band.
I wasn’t sure how I’d feel when I saw him, but there was no animosity. “Dan. Thank you for seeing me.”
He nodded toward the inner office door. “Why don’t you come into my office and we can talk?”
“Of course.”
Neither of us spoke as we walked down the carpeted hallway past beautiful color pictures of buildings that I assumed his company had done the engineering work on.
Inside his office, he closed the door quietly and held out his hand toward a chair. “Why don’t you have a seat, Rae?”
A part of me wished I could summon a witty quip or something to draw the pure awkwardness out of this moment. But I had nothing, and I could see that he was a little nervous. So I simply said, “Thank you.”
Dan took the seat to my right instead of behind his desk. I took that as a good sign. He wasn’t going for the power position. In this, he saw us as equals.
“How are you doing?” he asked. “You look great, by the way. You’ve barely aged at all.”
“You look good as well, Dan.”
“I try.” He tugged at his cuff and sat a little straighter. “Not possible to look like the eighteen-year-old track star these days. A thriving engineering practice and a couple of kids running around the house make it hard to find the time to work out. I only run a few days a week at best.”
I raised my chin a fraction at the mention of children. “How many children do you have?”
“Two girls. Alexa and Madison. They’re ten and seven.”
“I bet they’re beautiful.”
On the credenza behind his desk were pictures of his wife and their two daughters. Michael didn’t look like his half sisters. He looked like me, and the girls favored their mother. For some reason, I was glad he didn’t have a son.
“Are you married?” he asked. “Do you have more children?”
More children. The subtle acknowledgment of Michael didn’t spin me into a panic as it might have years ago. “No, to both.”
He let a sigh leak over his lips. “I’ve thought about you over the years and wondered how you were doing. Susan sends me pictures of Michael every year. He really looks so much like you.”
He’d opened Susan’s envelopes. He’d gotten on with his life. I cleared my throat. “The pictures are amazing. I really do appreciate her.”
“She’s been great. You did a fantastic job choosing her.” He cleared his throat. “The older I get, the more I realize how much I dumped on your shoulders back then. I was so scared that I didn’t think about anyone but myself.”
“We were both so clueless.”
“Yeah, but I could have done a hell of a lot more.”
There was some comfort in knowing he was affected by the boy’s birth. “Michael sent me an e-mail a few weeks ago. He wanted to meet and I agreed. I met him and Susan in a restaurant a few days ago.”
His smile was genuine, warm. “How did it go?”
“Initially, it was hard facing him.”
“Why?”
“Because I gave him away.”
“Rae, you were a kid.”
“He was my child.” The words sounded rougher than I would have liked.
Absently, he twisted his wedding band. “We did right by him, Rae. Neither one of us was in a position to give him what he needed. You were at least enough of a parent to see he had good people to raise him.”
“Do your wife and children know about him?”
“My parents do, of course, and so does my wife. We’ll tell the girls when they get older.” He shifted before looking at me. “You okay, Rae?”
“Did you know Susan was sick?”
A wrinkle deepened across his forehead. “No.”
“I think it must be cancer, judging by her pale skin and hair loss. I didn’t ask her about it because I didn’t want to upset Michael.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
I moistened my lips. “I hate the idea of him losing her.”
“Rae, medicine is pretty amazing these days. Cancer isn’t the killer it used to be.”
“It doesn’t look good, Dan.”
He drew in a deep breath. “She’s still married?”
“Yes.”
“Good. They aren’t alone.”
“But the boy still needs his mother.”
He studied me. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Dark eyes studied me with a maturity absent from my memories. “I haven’t seen you in over sixteen years, and now you’re here.”
Fine was the first word to spring to the tip of my tongue. I was fine. Wasn’t I? The ice was cracking. Emotions were bubbling up. I could feel my life’s direction changing whether I liked it or not. “I just thought you might like to know I saw him. And that he’s doing well.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know how to answer the question. I thought I had my life figured out and now, I’m not so sure.” I drew upon a smile I used for emotional patients. “Once I have the emotions sorted and put back in their boxes, I’ll be fine.”
“You didn’t use to be so careful. You used to laugh and have fun. That’s what I always liked about you. You were never afraid to try or do things.”
My breath caught in my chest. “That was before I handed Michael over to Susan.”
His eyes now showed a surprising sadness. “I thought you wanted the adoption, Rae.”
“It was practical. Made sense. My mother wanted it. You and your parents wanted it. I don’t think I did.” I turned the wattage up on the smile. “But what’s done is done.”
The lines feathering from the corners of Dan’s eyes deepened. “I didn’t realize you wanted him. When I saw you sixteen years ago, at that Christmas party, you looked so in control and back on track. I was your typical eighteen-year-old male. Drunk. Foolish. Selfish. And relieved I hadn’t lost my future. But now that I’m older, there are times I wonder what it would have been like for you and me to raise our son. He looks like a great kid.”
“He is. We missed out on a lot.” There was comfort knowing this had not been easy for him.
“No, it’s good to talk about it, Rae. I don’t talk about him much and that seems wrong.”
“If I have more updates, would you like me to send you an e-mail?”
“That would be great. I sincerely do.”
I extended my hand. “Thanks for your time. I know this visit is the last thing you ever expected.”
“I’m glad you came by.” He took my hand and shook it as if we were business associates. “Take care, Rae. Any time you want to talk. And if you or Michael or his parents ever need me, let me know.”
“Thank you.” But of course, it wasn’t likely I’d ever visit him again. I’d allowed emotion to drive this entire scene, and I felt weak and foolish for it.
My fingertips prickled, as if warming from frostbite. “Best of luck to you.”
“You, too, Rae. Let me show you out.”
“No. That’s not necessary. Really.”
He nodded. He understood.
I left Dan standing in his office, with the pictures of his lovely children and wife smiling back at me from the credenza.
March 30, 1769
My Dearest Children,
The crops have been bountiful for the last decade and Mr. McDonald has declared a handsome profit. Mr. McDonald works even harder on the foundation for the fine brick home near the cottage. The hard labor seems to ease his sadness. He seems to accept that his dreams for a son have ended with his wife’s illness. The growth in her belly is not a living creature, but something dark that drains life from her.
Hanna is now thirteen, and she is very pretty. Many of the young men in Alexandria have taken notice. We spend most of our days together and I am now teaching her the magic of the herbs. She is an apt student and may one day be a better healer than I. The farmer speaks of her making a fine marriage one day, but I rarely dwell on any notion that leaves me with no children in my care.
—F
Chapter Seventeen
Lisa Smyth
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 31, 4:00 P.M.
Since I’d retrieved the box of glass plate negatives from the salvage yard, I’d avoided them. Common sense told me they wouldn’t be as technically sound compared to the work I was doing now, and so I allowed myself to believe it was my artist’s ego that kept me from inspecting them. I looked up from the computer, glanced over at a sleeping Charlie, and then studied the dusty wooden box at the end of the table. It looked as if it belonged in another time and place.
“If you walk that dog much more, his legs will fall off. And I swear, if you watch any more astrology on YouTube, I’m screaming.”
“It’s either that or drink.”
Charlie opened his eyes and stared at me.
“What happened to work? You used to work all the time. And you’ve got a whole box of negatives that must be a real trip down memory lane.”
“I can’t mess up the house. And I’m not developing more negatives in the alley. That was maddening trying to keep the dust off the prints.”
The View from Prince Street Page 24
