Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [19]
"I'm not sure."
"Michael told me that you think there's some mystery about who you are," she said with a quizzical look in her eyes.
"I have some questions," Julia admitted.
"How can you have questions now?" Liz demanded, her expression filled with hurt. "Our mother just died. Our father is drinking himself into oblivion every night, in case you haven't noticed. And your fianc? is upset that you want to postpone your wedding. Don't you have enough on your plate? Do you really need to find your birth father now? After all these years?"
Liz made some good points. The timing wasn't right. Then again, it had never been right. Which was how Julia had reached the age of twenty-eight without knowing who her biological father was. But he wasn't really the issue. "I'm not trying to find my father," she said. "I just want to know who I am, where I was born. I saw a picture at the museum. It was the spit-ting image of me. And the little girl had on a necklace just like mine."
"The one with the swan? That's why you were looking at it?"
"Yes."
"Michael said the girl in the picture lived in Russia. How can you think it's you? You were never in Russia."
It sounded worse Coming from Liz's mouth. "I know it seems crazy. But that photo started me thinking about how I don't have any pictures of me or Mom before she married Gino. Isn't that odd? I thought if I came here, I might be able to find something that would prove I was living in the United States when I was three years old."
Liz stared at her like she was out of her mind. "Are you having some sort of breakdown, Julia? You're acting like a mad person."
"No, I'm acting like a person who doesn't know where she came from. It's different for you, Lizzie. You know who both your parents are. I only know about my mother. I don't know about my real father or my grandparents on my mother's side. And I can't remember anything from when I was little, which is also driving me crazy. Why don't I have any memories from that time in my life?"
"A lot of people don't remember when they're really young. I don't remember much."
"You don't have to remember, because I can tell you everything," Julia replied. "I was there from the minute you were born. No one that I know besides my mother was there from the minute I was born. And she's gone."
"All right, fine." Liz perched on the edge of an old trunk. "Did you ask Dad about it?"
"Not yet. He had a big headache and a hangover. I didn't want to bring it up if I could find something some other way."
"And that man you were with last night? Is he involved in this search?"
"He's the son of the photographer who took the picture." Julia didn't explain that Alex was the one who had taken the picture.
"And he thinks it's you, too?"
"He thinks it's worth looking into."
"You're both nuts," Liz said flatly.
Julia sighed. Liz tended to have a closed mind and could be very judgmental. She was always the last one to try anything new, and she often refused to look at Problems in her life. She hadn't been able to accept their mother was going to die until she'd actually died. Up until then, Liz had insisted that their mother would get well, that life would return to normal. Maybe it was her age. She was six years younger than Julia, and she still wanted and needed to be protected. Julia usually tried to do just that, but not this time.
"Don't you have to work this afternoon?" Julia asked, deciding to change the subject.
"Not for a while yet. 1 think you're taking a risk, Julia. You could lose Michael over this ridiculous search that will probably turn up nothing in the long run. Do you want to take that chance?"
A few months ago, make that a week ago, Julia would have said no, that she was happy with the way things were, but the photograph in the museum had opened up her eyes to the fact that the Status quo had changed when her mother died. There was nothing to hold her back now. She could finally ask the questions and find the answers that she needed to fill out the missing part of her life. Michael should be able to