“A very nice couple. He’s in the restaurant business like Fred, and she works in advertising. I don’t think you know them. Care to say hello to your sister?”
Maggie hadn’t shown even an ounce of interest in my quest since I got to Baltimore. It seemed like she couldn’t care less, or at least not enough to merit an international phone call in any event. I had no desire to feign casual conversation with my sister at that moment. Especially since these friends I had never heard of were suddenly making me feel shut out of her life. Who were they anyway? Fred’s buddies? Of course, the truth was that I was jealous of my sister for having a social life at all, something I was sorely lacking. The jealousy went hand in hand with shame. Maggie wasn’t responsible for my life choices, and it was up to me to live with the consequences. Someday, I’d have to apologize to her for being so mean and unfair. Why should I care if Dad was helping her out here and there? Money never meant a thing to me, and I would swear on all that was Absolutely Fabulous and holy, on Saints Edina and Patsy, that I was as selfless a sister as they come.
“Elby? Are you there?” he said.
“Actually, I was hoping to talk to you alone,” I finally said. “Would you be able to get somewhere quiet?”
“Sure, hang on, I’ll just slip into my room.” I heard my father grunt as he sat down on the bed, his knees acting up as usual. “Okay, I’m all yours. Is everything all right, dear?”
“Yeah. Everything’s fine.”
“What’s the weather like over there?”
“It’s long-distance, Dad. Forget the weather. I want you to tell me the truth, all right? What was Mum doing in Baltimore?”
I heard my father sigh heavily into the silence that followed.
“So, you leaving in such a hurry wasn’t for an assignment after all, was it?”
I couldn’t lie to my father, even over the phone. I confessed the truth about the letter and the implication by the mysterious poison-pen that she had committed a robbery. I left out the part about the old photo of Mum kissing George-Harrison’s mother. After I had finished explaining, there were a few more moments of silence, followed by another weary sigh, before my father at last began to speak.
“When I said that your mother came home to England, it wasn’t altogether true,” he began. “Her real home was back in the United States. She was born and raised in Baltimore, then sent away to boarding school in England. Your mother was terribly lonely there, until the day we first laid eyes on each other at that pub. The rest you know. We were together for a few years before she decided to reconnect with her family. She spent a good ten years there before coming back to me.”
“But Mum didn’t have any family. You always told us she grew up in an orphanage.”
“Well . . . when you’re sent away to a boarding school at twelve, so far from home and entirely against your will, it’s a bit like growing up in an orphanage.”
“Why lie about all that?”
“Only your mother could answer that, and sadly, it’s too late now. Elby, please. I implore you. Don’t go digging into your mother’s past. You know deep down inside how much she loved you—you even more than your brother and sister. Let her and her past rest in peace. Hold on to your memory of who she was as your mother.”
“Dad? You didn’t even flinch when I said your own wife had committed a robbery. So, does that mean you knew about it?”
“I will not have you thinking your mother was a thief. It’s a bald-faced lie!” my father insisted.
“I’ve got proof. I spent the whole morning at the police station. I’ve seen the police report, Dad. Thirty-six years ago, Mum committed a major crime. She robbed a wealthy family blind in their own home. Please stop lying. I’m too old for Santa Claus and Prince Charming. You’re the only one I still believe in! Can’t you just tell me the truth?”
“My dear girl . . . it wasn’t just any wealthy family. It was her family, her own.”
It was now my turn to be speechless. I took a deep breath.
“You’re telling me . . . that Mum was Robert and Hanna Stanfield’s daughter?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you, essentially. Since you’ve already got your hands on the police records, you would have uncovered the truth yourself sooner or later. Your mother’s maiden name, the one you knew her by, was actually her grandfather’s, a man by the name of Sam Goldstein. She claimed it as her own as soon as she returned to England, when we reunited.”
“Why change her identity?”
“Because she had left that part of her life far behind her and insisted that you and the other kids never learn the truth under any circumstances.”
“But why?”
“To break the curse! She wanted her children to be Donovans, not Stanfields. Never that.”
Stanfields. I still couldn’t believe it. “What curse? What does that mean?”
“The betrayals, the lying, the souring of any semblance of love . . . the tragedies that plagued the family members and their spouses alike.”