Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [59]
"That's Henry," Susan said. "He died last year."
Julia picked up another photograph, one of Sarah as a little girl, sitting at a piano-the same piano that was in the corner of the living room. "She told me she didn't know how to play the piano," Julia murmured.
"Really? Sarah was very good at it," Susan said.
"It's strange. I've seen the picture, but I don't feel as if we're talking about the same person."
"I don't, either," Julia replied.
"Tell us what happened after Sarah got her master's degree," Alex interrupted. "What kind of work did she get?"
"She got a job teaching Russian at a university," Susan replied. "She fell in love with a professor there. He was the father of the baby she lost. After he broke up with her, she quit her job, and I'm not sure what she did next. She told me she was traveling, taking time for herself. We didn't see her much, a handful of visits in three years. Then she was-gone."
"You never had a fight or disagreement that harmed your relationship?" Julia asked.
Susan shook her head. "Nothing. The last time we spoke she said she loved me very much."
"When was that conversation?" Alex asked.
"About two weeks before they told me she died."
Alex frowned at her answer. "Didn't you ask questions? Didn't you inquire into the circumstances of her death?"
"Alex, give her a chance to explain," Julia said quickly. Alex wasn't nearly as emotionally involved with Susan as Julia was, and she wanted him to take it easy on her grandmother.
"I'm sorry. I don't mean to push you. I just wonder how you came to believe Sarah was dead."
"Henry asked all the questions. He went to Chicago, and spoke to the police. They said the fire was due to a spark near a gas can. There was an explosion. By the time the fire department got there, the town house was engulfed in flames. Sarah was the only one at home. Her roommate was actually out of the country at the time. So she escaped…" Her voice broke, and tears began to stream down her face once again.
"It's okay. You don't have to say any more," Julia told her.
"When Henry asked to see her… they said there was nothing left to see." Susan drew in a deep, painful breath. "We buried her ashes in the cemetery down the road. I've gone there every year on her birthday. I pray for her and I talk to her and tell her about our family, our life." She sniffed as her mouth crumpled once again. "How could she have been alive and not let me know?"
Julia had no idea how Sarah could have let her mother suffer the way she had. For twenty-five years she'd kept her silence, allowing her mother to believe she was dead. Unless… was there another explanation? Had there been a third party involved in the deception? Had Sarah been told her parents didn't want her at the same time her parents were being told she was dead? Was that even remotely possible? There was a time discrepancy. And that time was what bothered her the most. Sarah had supposedly died when Julia was three years old, about the time that photograph was taken. But Sarah had always told Julia that her parents had disowned her when she became pregnant.
"I just can't understand why Sarah would have hurt me that way," Susan added, dabbing at her eyes. "I thought I'd cried out all my tears, but they just keep coming."
"I'm so sorry," Julia said, feeling helpless in the face of such terrible grief. "I shouldn't have come here and dropped these revelations on you."
"You said I have another granddaughter, too?"
Julia nodded. "Elizabeth. I call her Lizzie. She and I have different fathers. I don't actually know who my father is, but my mother married Gino DeMarco when I was five years old, and nine months later Lizzie came into the world. She's twenty-two now. And she's beautiful. She looks a lot like our mother."
"You don't look anything like Sarah," Susan said.
Julia knew Susan didn't mean anything by her somewhat harsh words, but they still stung. "She used to say I had her nose and her long legs, but you're right.