Chapters (43)
- Also by
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Chapter 10
- Chapter 11
- Chapter 12
- Chapter 13
- Chapter 14
- Chapter 15
- Chapter 16
- Chapter 17
- Chapter 18
- Chapter 19
- Chapter 20
- Chapter 21
- Chapter 22
- Chapter 23
- Chapter 24
- Chapter 25
- Chapter 26
- Chapter 27
- Chapter 28
- Chapter 29
- Chapter 30
- Chapter 31
- Chapter 32
- Chapter 33
- Chapter 34
- Chapter 35
- Chapter 36
- Chapter 37
- ALL ABOUT EVIE
- DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
There were two people on my family tree—Betsy Baturra and Johnny Kandinsky—who were married. It said that these people were my parents. There was also another woman . . . Tilly Kandinsky. It said it was highly likely she was my aunt.
But this couldn’t be right. Betsy and Johnny were not my parents. Poppy and Henry Lindsay were my parents.
Tilly Kandinsky was not my aunt. Aunt Camellia and Aunt Iris were my aunts.
Where had I heard those names before? Johnny and Betsy. Johnny and Betsy. I racked my brain. Tilly.
“Oh, my God,” Jules said, looking at my screen. “This isn’t right. Those are not your parents. This DNA company has royally screwed up.”
“I’m looking them up on Facebook.” I found the woman’s name and her page. My breath stuck in my throat, my heart pounded. “That woman, Betsy, looks exactly like me.” Looking at Betsy was like looking at me in twenty years. She had thick black hair, like mine, although she had a few streaks of white. I have gold eyes. She had gold eyes. My eyes tilt. Hers tilted. We had the same mouth, same high cheekbones.
Jules was breathing rather heavily beside me as we stared at the photo of Betsy.
“We’re not listed as sisters,” Jules said. “And that . . . that woman . . . who is listed as your mother . . .”
I stared at the screen with Jules, her cheek almost touching mine.
Yes, something was very wrong.
“You look like her,” Jules breathed. “It’s like looking at you in twenty years.”
“She owns Rose’s Market.” I touched the screen with a trembling finger.
“That’s my favorite market,” Jules mused quietly. “Great wine. I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“She has a daughter,” I said. We stared at the girl’s photo. Her name was Kayla. Black hair. Gold eyes.
“She looks so much like you did when you were a teenager,” Jules breathed.
I was starting to understand, even as my brain pushed back, unable to accept. I remembered where I’d read those names before.
It all came to me in a rush. Like a tsunami. Like a hurricane. Like a thunderstorm.
Betsy and Johnny were the young couple who were jailed for murder.
They had to give up their baby. The baby was born in Portland, like me, in 1975.
Tilly, Johnny’s sister, remembered what happened that night after years of not remembering anything, after years of not speaking.. . . Dead women in a dirt cave under the ground in Idaho, dead women in a crawl space under the basement in Portland. . . . Betsy and Johnny found innocent in their next trials.
They fought in court to get their baby back. They lost.
They had named her Rose.
Oh. My. God.
* * *
“Evie, I want to apologize to you.”