“Oh, yes. He’d always send me a card on that date. This date. Today. Not a birthday card, of course. Just a ‘thinking of you’ type card. I felt sad knowing I wouldn’t hear from him this year. It was … it was our shared secret, you know? My husband and daughter were the only other people who knew everything. Well, and Jesse’s Bernice, of course. But no one else.”

“Well.” Oliver smiled past the shock he had to be feeling. “Happy birthday!”

“Thank you.” Judith returned his smile, and with some effort and a hand on her turquoise cane, she got to her feet. “Now”—she said, nodding toward the mural—“I’d like to get a closer look at that old thing, if I may.”

“Of course,” Oliver said. He stood up and reached for her elbow, but Gloria slipped between him and Judith to do the job herself.

All four of us stood in front of the mural, and Judith read the wall text—the wall text that was now wildly inaccurate and would have to be rewritten once again. I watched her face as she read, her pink lips moving ever so slightly. Suddenly she gasped. She turned to look at me, her eyes intent on my face.

“Oh, my dear,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Oh, my goodness.”

The three of us stared at her. “What?” I asked.

She licked her thin lips, her eyes riveted on mine. “I think I know why Jesse chose you to do this work,” she said.

Chapter 67

Chapter 67

Judith pointed to the last line on the wall text: Restored by Morgan Christopher. “Is this your name?” she asked. “Not your married name, or … is this the name you were born with? Morgan Christopher?”

“Yes,” I said, frowning.

She turned back to the wall text and it was a long moment before she spoke again. “Perhaps it’s just a coincidence,” she said, “but…” She glanced toward Oliver. “May I sit down?”

“Of course,” he said, and slid one of the chairs over to where she was standing. She shifted the chair slightly so she was facing us and lowered herself into it with a soft groan, her eyes on me the whole time. There was the slightest tremor to her lips.

“My daughter Debra died four years ago,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Terrible thing, to bury a child.” She looked away for the first time in what felt like minutes, but quickly returned her gaze to me. “Shortly before she died, she did one of those … DNA tests? You know the ones I mean?”

“Yes.” Oliver and I spoke at the same moment.

“Debra knew I’d given up a baby long ago and she was curious to see what might pop up on the test.”

“I don’t understand how those tests work,” Gloria said.