The Girl On Legare Street by Karen White Read Free Book Online

hospital records. I guess you would have been about six or seven at the time because it was after your parents separated. You and your mother were living here with your grandmother when it happened. I assumed . . .” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. I thought you would have known.”
    The back of my mouth tasted like rust. I remembered my father showing up at my grandmother’s house and my excitement when I thought he was there to take us both home. But he’d left me there and carried my mother to the car in his arms like a baby. Later my grandmother told me that she’d had appendicitis and needed to stay in the hospital for a couple of days but would be fine. And I had believed her despite how thin my mother looked when she returned or how a baby’s crying had been added to the litany of sounds I chased but never found in my grandmother’s house.
    I shook my head. “No. I didn’t know.” I tried to smile. “They probably thought I was too young to understand how babies were made”—my smile dropped—“or lost. How did you find out?”
    She shrugged but her gaze remained intense. “It’s part of my job. I just know where to look and who to ask. I saw an old newspaper article in the archives about your grandmother’s death, and there was a brief mention of how it followed on the heels of your mother’s hospital stay. It didn’t say why she was there of course, but I have an anonymous source at the hospital who looked through the records and found out about the miscarriage. All confidential, of course.” She paused for a moment. “The information you need is always there if you’re willing to be persistent and look hard enough.”
    I felt we weren’t talking about my mother’s illness anymore. Suddenly uncomfortable I took a step back. “I really need to get home now. . . .”
    She looked disappointed. “I understand. But just one more thing—please. I want to show you a picture. I promise I will only take one more minute of your time.” She smiled, and she looked so much like the dead Emily that I paused, giving Rebecca her chance to whip an enlarged photo of my mother at an opera charity event in New York from her oversized purse.
    “You look a lot like her.”
    I didn’t say anything. I’d always hated it when people told me that—mostly because it wasn’t true but also because I liked to pretend that we weren’t even related.
    Rebecca held the picture closer to my face. “She’s wearing the most beautiful necklace and earrings in this photo. Do you know anything about them?”
    I stared down at the photo, at the diamond-and-sapphire collar necklace and matching chandelier earrings. I remembered my grandmother allowing me to play dress-up with them, sometimes using her silk bath-robe as my gown as I paraded up and down the hallways. “Yes,” I said. “They were my grandmother’s. My mother must have inherited them when my grandmother passed.”
    “So they’re family heirlooms?” Her eyes narrowed slightly.
    “I suppose you could call them that. I do know my grandmother said that they had once been her mother’s. How much further back they go I have no idea. To be honest, I think they’re a bit gaudy and if they were mine, I’d probably sell them.”
    “Like your mother sold this house.”
    I jerked my head up to meet her eyes. “I think I’ve answered enough questions.” I yanked hard on the leash this time, forcing General Lee from his reclining position at Rebecca’s feet, and began to walk away, pulling the reluctant dog. “Good night, Miss Edgerton. It was nice meeting you.”
    “You can call me Rebecca.”
    I continued to walk away. “Fine, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other again. Good night.”
    I was about to turn the corner when I heard her say, “Don’t bet on it.”
    Pretending not to hear her, I tugged on the leash and pulled General Lee around the corner with me, wondering what it was about Rebecca Edgerton, besides her resemblance to Jack’s