“I promised your mother I would never tell you.”
I laughed once. “You know his name. Caleb.”
Whatever Grandpa had been afraid of, that name confirmed it.
The porch beneath us seemed to tilt.
Grandpa sank into the wicker chair. “Caleb. And his father?”
“William. Grandpa, you’re scaring me.”
He pressed his lips to Nora’s forehead and closed his eyes.
“No, sweetheart. God, no.”
When he spoke again, his voice was thin. “I promised your mother I would never tell you. Sarah made me swear, years before the crash.”
“Swear what?”
“That you would grow up without that family in your life.” He looked away. “And after she died, I was glad to keep that promise. After what William did to her, I wanted nothing from that family anywhere near you.”
I lowered myself onto the top step, gripping the railing. “Grandpa. Please. Are you telling me Caleb and I are…” I could not finish it.
“That was Caleb.”
“No.” His head snapped up. “No, sweetheart. God, no. You are not related. Not by blood.”
Relief hit me so hard I almost laughed. “Then what?”
He looked at Nora’s small mismatched eyes and his own eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother was his nanny.”
“Whose?”
“Caleb’s. When that boy was seven years old, your mother worked for Caleb’s family. She lived in that house. You lived in that house, Emily. You were four, five years old.”
“A man yelling at Mom in a doorway.”
Something stirred inside me. “A big house,” I whispered. “There was a garden. There was a red bicycle.”
“Yes.”
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