The Saints of the Cross (25 page)

“Very funny, mister. Now get out of here before you get me grounded for the rest of my life,” I say, but lean over and kiss those sweet lips one last time.

When I go inside, I hear Dad calling my name from his office. I go in, and he’s sitting in front of the computer with his reading glasses hanging precariously low on the tip of his nose. He pushes them up over the bridge as he looks up at me.

“Did you want me?” I ask innocently enough, as I plop down in the arm chair facing Dad’s desk.

“Hello, sweetie. Did you have a good time tonight celebrating your birthday with Xander?” Dad asks with a soft look on his face. I don’t detect an ounce of accusation in that question.

“Yeah, we had a nice dinner and went out for chocolate cake at this little diner downtown.” Perhaps creeper boy didn’t tell Dad what he saw in the Land Rover after all.

“I really like that guy—Xander. He’s been completely selfless with his time and energy to help us.”

“I’m glad you like him. I think I’m going to keep him around for a while.” I can’t believe I’m talking boys with my dad.

“What are you doing?” I ask and lean over the desk to see what’s on the computer screen, hoping the abrupt change in conversation isn’t blatantly noticeable.

“I’m looking through missing persons databases in New York State. Listen, Evie, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“I wanted to ask you what you think about telling Ethan and Emma what’s going on. It’s getting harder to find excuses about what we’re doing every weekend without them. Sooner or later, they’re going to get suspicious or figure it out on their own.”

“I know. I was just hoping we would find her before we had to break the news to them.”

We stare at each other in silence for a moment.

“Let me tell Emma,” I offer, “and you tell Ethan. We could do it tomorrow. I’ll pick Emma up after ballet practice. I’ll tell her then.”

“I’ll take Ethan out to lunch and tell him. We should meet back here in the afternoon for a family meeting.”

I laugh a little inside, because we haven’t had a family meeting since the one back in Spain—the same one that started the avalanche that is now consuming our lives.

“Xander will be with me. We’re spending the day searching outlying areas.”

Dad gives an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders. “Fine with me.”

I get up from the chair and cross over to my father. I bend down and give him a kiss on the cheek. He smiles up at me.

“Goodnight, Dad.”

“Good night.”

I turn and head for the door, but just as I grab the knob, Dad says, “Oh, and a little less hanky-panky in the driveway, okay? You’re going to traumatize your siblings.”

It’s true what they say: you won’t die from embarrassment. But if it
were
possible, I would have dropped dead in my dad’s office right then. Instead, I turn to him and with a slight grin say, “Yes, Dad.”

Then I run for the safety of my bedroom.

CHAPTER 19

Xander and I spend the morning in Alexandria searching hospitals, morgues, and shelters, just as Detective Drago advised us to do. We post flyers with my mom’s picture anywhere they’ll let us, from shop windows to gas station men’s restrooms. People barely glance at the photo when we thrust it in their faces. It’s a lovely photo of her, taken during the time we lived in Japan, but I know the picture is probably not how she looks now. I still have hope that someone will recognize her. Surely, someone must’ve seen her while she was here. I’ll keep looking for her, no matter how long or how far I have to go. I’m not confident that she’s still in the DC area, but I’m not confident she isn’t, either.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, we park Xander’s Land Rover near the Franconia Metro Station and take the train downtown to collect Emma from her ballet class. We’re about fifteen minutes early, but we stealthily slip into the studio and take seats in the corner where we can watch the dancers unnoticed. They’re rehearsing for the company’s Christmas production of the
Nutcracker
, which is an annual fundraiser for a local children’s hospital, performed at the Kennedy Center.

Emma has won the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy, and I watch as she skillfully leaps, pirouettes, and glides across the floor. Her face is a study in serenity, and her arms float gracefully around her as she moves, her feet landing in silent perfection as if she dances on a cloud. Seeing her in her element gives me a whole new appreciation for my baby sister. Her confidence, her dedication, and her maturity are evident in the way she carries herself. In the beautifully delicate features of her face—the naturally red lips, upturned nose, and sage-green eyes—I see that she’s not concentrating on what her next move should be. Rather, she’s feeling the confluence of the music and her body. She’s lean and powerful, like a young, spirited filly. Seeing her like this, it’s hard to believe she is a thirteen-year-old child and not a seasoned prima ballerina.

Suddenly, I’m stricken with guilt, not only for hiding the information about our mother but also for the way I’ve treated her over the years. I’ve always thought of her as a youngster, not my equal. In my mind, she’s still that tiny girl who excitedly tagged along everywhere I went, until one day I pushed her away from me. I’m praying that when I tell her the truth about our mother and our father, she’ll realize that I do now see her as my equal.

I whisper to Xander to meet me back at the metro station. I’ve decided to take Emma where we can talk privately. I’m going to walk with her to the World War II Memorial, the place where I’ve sought refuge in the calming sound of the water formations so many times since we’ve come here. It’ll probably be quiet there today; everyone will be in the malls shopping for the holidays.

As I’m watching Emma in awe, Xander leans over and kisses the side of my mouth, and then disappears through the door before I can say anything else.

When the instructor announces the end of practice, Emma glances over toward the waiting area and appears genuinely surprised to see me. She trots over to me with a puzzled expression on her face and plops down on the empty seat that Xander just vacated.

“Hi. Dad didn’t tell me you were coming today,” she says around raspy breaths.

“Well, I wanted it to be a surprise,” I answer. “I want to talk with you about something.”

Her face crinkles, and she says, “Oh. Okay. Just a sec. I’ll go get dressed.”

I take Emma to get hot chocolate at the café next door. Then we walk the five blocks to the memorial, passing by the Washington Monument, the whole time discussing the ballet and my plans for college. I haven’t really decided what to do, because I don’t want to leave DC until I find my mother. But I can’t tell Emma that fact just yet. Instead, I tell her that I’m still weighing my options. She informs me that she wants to go to college where she can double-major in ballet and medicine. I laugh to myself at the resulting mental image: Emma as a ballerina doctor, going on rounds in a pink tutu layered under a white lab coat, entertaining patients with her graceful pirouettes and leaps.

When we arrive at the memorial, I show Emma my secret place to hide and watch the crowds go by. We take a seat on a slab of stone tucked back in a corner of the memorial.

Emma looks intently at me and says, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I want to talk to you about what’s been going on around our house.”

“Does it have something to do with why you and Dad have been gone every weekend? And why you don’t know what you’re going to do about college? And why Xander seems to be around all the time lately?”

This kid doesn’t miss a beat. She gets that from me, most definitely.

“Yes, actually, it does.”

“Evie, are you pregnant?”

My mouth drops open.

“What? No,” I practically screech. “That’s what you thought?”

She simply nods and shrugs. She takes another sip of her hot chocolate and says, “Well, thank God you’re not. I’m not ready to be an auntie yet.”

“I’m not ready to be a mommy yet, so you’re safe for a while, kid,” I say and playfully nudge her with my elbow. “Wait, how does Xander fit into that scenario?”

“I thought he was the daddy,” she says, as if that conclusion was a no-brainer. I make a huge mistake and take a sip of my cocoa right before she says, “Ethan said you were having sex with him in the driveway last night, so it made sense in my—”

The shock of hearing those words from those innocent lips causes me to choke, and I spew a mouthful of hot chocolate all over myself. I’m coughing like I just swallowed half a swimming pool, and Emma’s frantically slapping me on the back as she yells in my ear, “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I manage to croak. I nudge her off of me before her screaming shatters my eardrum. “I just choked on the cocoa.”

“Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to die the way you were coughing,” she says and signs the cross over herself. Obviously, she has spent way too much time with Cora back in Spain.

“I’m going to kill Ethan,” I say once I regain my composure and the coughing fit has stopped. I retrieve some tissues out of my purse to dry the chocolate stains on my white sweater, although I might as well throw it away when we get home; it’s ruined. “We were
not
having sex in the driveway, I promise.”

“Good. I was going to say that you’re too much of a lady for that kind of behavior.”

Christ
. My baby sister is lecturing me on what constitutes appropriate lady-like behavior.

“Exactly,” I laugh, trying to calm myself down. What I’m about to tell her isn’t going to be easy, and I’ve got to maintain some sort of control of the situation and myself.

“Listen,” I say, brushing wisps of her silky, straight, blonde hair back off her forehead with my free hand. “What I need to tell you involves all of us, and it’s going to change everything about your life as you now know it.”

She’s blinking expectantly at me with her intense, almond-shaped, green eyes. She inherited the shape of her eyes from our mother and their color from our father—from
her
father. She nods at me in a very mature, encouraging manner, and all I can think is that I wish Xander were here with me. I need my rock.

“The reason Dad and I—” I start.

“And Xander. Don’t forget him,” Emma interrupts. By the expression on her sweet face, I realize that she has a crush on my Xander. And who could blame her?

“And Xander,” I continue with a smile. “The reason we’ve been gone every weekend for the last month and a half is because we’ve been searching for something.” Okay, that’s a start. Emma’s staring at me now with a perplexed expression, and I know I have to reach deep inside myself and summon the strength I’m lacking on the surface to finish what I’ve started. There’s no turning back now.

“What have you been looking for?” Emma whispers, and the frown line on her forehead deepens. Isn’t she too young for frown lines? Why haven’t I noticed them before? I’m acutely aware of the fact that depending on how I approach this, it could possibly ruin Emma’s life and forever change who she is as a person. There is absolutely no way I could live with myself if that were to happen, so I take a deep breath and think about how I would want to hear the news. And then I open my mouth.

“To get my license, I had to bring my birth certificate,” I say, starting from the beginning. “I found the original document from the hospital where I was born, and I discovered Dad’s name was not on it.”

“What does that mean?” Emma asks, her face crinkled up in confusion.

“It means that Dad—Nash—isn’t my biological father,” I answer. Her expression tells me that she doesn’t understand what I’m saying to her. “Mom gave birth to me when she was a senior in high school, and Dad met her a year later and married her. Then he adopted me when I was a baby.”

“Oh, so that means—”

“You’re right. It means we are half-sisters.” I watch her face. She blinks those innocent doe eyes, and a single tear glistens as it slides down her right cheek. Suddenly, something happens that I wasn’t prepared for: I burst into tears. Emma throws her arms around me and squeezes me tight against her bony little shoulder. She’s stroking my back and whispering in my ear that everything will be okay. I sob harder now because I’m the big sister. I’m supposed to be the strong one.

I manage to catch my breath and slowly calm myself with help from Emma’s soothing voice. I dry my eyes with the tissue I used to blot my sweater and look into Emma’s stoic face. Although I see a lot of our mother in her, I also see a lot of Nash in her, too. She’s inherited everything that’s good about both of them. She’s strong and wise like her father, and beautiful and kindhearted like our mother. I am none of those things.

I hook my arm around Emma and pull her closer to me. She wraps her arms around my waist and rests her head on my chest. I kiss the top of her head and tell her, “I love you.” And when I do, I realize I’ve never said those words to her, or to Ethan. Emma cranes her neck up to look in my face. Her eyes search mine, but then she lowers her head and hugs me tighter.

“I always thought you hated me. And Ethan,” she whispers.

I let loose of her and, tipping her chin up, see that her cheeks are wet with silent tears. A pang of guilt stabs me in the gut, and if I could, I’d twist the knife even deeper, because I deserve it.

“I have always loved you, Emma. Always. From the time you were just a little baby and momma brought you home from the hospital. You were the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,” I tell her, and she smiles up at me. “I know I’ve been awful to you. I’ve been a terrible sister. And I promise you, I am going to be better.”

“Thank you, Evie. I love you, too.” She hugs me tighter, and I swallow hard because of what I’ve got to tell her next. I know it will break her heart, but I’ve got to be honest with her. She’s mature enough to handle it—she’s proven that to me—and I promised her I would be better. So that’s what I’m going to do. I let go of her and turn to face her.

“Emma, I have something else to tell you,” I say and stroke her cheek. She stares back at me with wide, expectant eyes. “When I found the birth certificate, I went to Indiana where I was born to find my father—my biological father.”

“You did? Did Dad know?”

“No. He didn’t know. I did it behind his back, and I’m not proud of it.”

“Did you find your real father?”

“Nash will always be my real father, because he’s the one who worked hard to raise me. But I had to know where I came from. I had to know where I got this ridiculous red hair and freckles,” I say with a weak laugh. “But no, I didn’t find him. I did find someone else.”

“Who?” she asks, her voice full of anticipation.

“I found our great-grandmother—mom’s grandma.”

“You did? You talked to her?”

“Yes. Her name is Grayce—Mamaw Grayce—and she wants to meet you.” I pause for a moment because I’ve got to gather the courage to say what’s next. Emma’s staring at me with her big, wet, green eyes. And looking at those beautiful Irish eyes, I know one thing for sure: if I don’t hurry up and tell her the truth, I’m going to chicken out.

“She also told me something very important that will change your life forever. Although I had my reservations about telling you, I know I have to. You deserve to know.”

Emma nods emphatically, her eyes never leaving mine. “Go ahead. You can tell me.”

“The reason that Dad, Xander, and I have been gone every weekend and some nights during the week . . . the thing we’ve been searching for . . . is our mother,” I say finally. Emma’s staring at me as if I had just said I was from another planet.