Several years later, Raymond met my mother.
He never told her he already had a daughter.
They married.
I was born.
Then, when I was four, a certified letter arrived at our house.
Caroline was trying to find Raymond.
She had been diagnosed with an aggressive heart condition.
Surgery might help.
It might also kill her.
She wanted Raymond to take responsibility for Naomi if something happened.
That was how Mom learned her husband had another child.
I felt sick.
“What did she do?”
Naomi swallowed.
“She confronted him.”
“And?”
“He left.”
“Because she found out?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
Naomi reached back into the safe and pulled out a stack of photocopied bank records.
Raymond hadn’t just hidden a child.
He had drained most of Mom’s savings before disappearing.
He had also borrowed money under Caroline’s name years earlier.
Both women had been lied to by the same man.
Both had believed he would eventually change.
Neither had understood the full extent of what he was doing.
I dropped the papers onto the table.
“So he ran away.”
“Yes.”
“And then Mom adopted you?”
“Not immediately.”
Naomi’s voice broke.
“Caroline survived her first surgery. But she got worse afterward. She couldn’t work. We moved three times in eighteen months.”
I sat down.
Naomi continued.
“One night, she called your mom.”
“Why would she call Mom?”
“Because she had nobody else.”
I stared at her.
“You’re telling me your mother called the wife of the man who cheated on her?”
“Ex-wife by then.”
“That doesn’t make it less insane.”
“I know.”
“What did she ask?”
Naomi looked toward the ceiling.
“She asked Evelyn to take me if she died.”
