I forced my trembling legs to move. I approached the table and looked down.
The photograph showed a young woman in her twenties, holding a chubby, laughing baby. The woman had the same piercing green eyes as Eleanor, the same sharp jawline. And on her exposed collarbone, the unmistakable dark mole. But what made the breath catch violently in my throat was the baby. He was wearing a silver bracelet with a tiny anchor charm.
My anchor charm. The one I still kept in my top dresser drawer at my father’s house.
“No,” I breathed, shaking my head violently. “No, no, no. This is a sick joke. You’re… you’re trying to tell me you’re my mother? That’s impossible! You’re sixty! My mother would be forty-five today! The math doesn’t even make sense!”
“Because I am not your mother, Travis,” Eleanor said, her eyes locking onto mine with a desperate, burning intensity. “I am her older sister. I am your aunt.”
The Fabricated Grave
I stood frozen, my mind racing, trying to stitch together the fragmented pieces of a reality that was rapidly tearing at the seams.
“If you’re my aunt, why did you marry me?” My voice rose, hysterical and sharp. “Why would you put me through this? Why did you let me fall in love with you?! This is sick! This is incestuous!”
