How differently things might have turned out if her mother had revealed the truth sooner, Kate thought. Who knows, perhaps she would have rejected Blaire, knowing that she was the product of her mother’s illicit liaison with a family friend. She didn’t understand how Lily and Bishop could have kept the secret all those years. The families had socialized together, even vacationed together. Georgina and her mother had been friends since they were girls. The only rationalization that Kate could come up with was that Lily felt too guilty to cut the friendship off. After all, what excuse could she have used? But it must have eaten her alive over the years. And Bishop, he was a married man at the time of Blaire’s conception. Even if her mother had no clue about how those pills would lessen her inhibitions, Bishop must have known. He was an experienced criminal attorney, with well-heeled clients who paid handsomely for his cunning and connections. Kate was certain he’d defended a client against a drug case more than once. Had he intentionally steered Lily toward taking them? He’d always struck Kate as bit of a letch. She remembered the way he’d looked her and all of Selby’s friends up and down when they were swimming at the pool, making her uncomfortable. And she’d heard rumors about his liking the paralegals and secretaries a little too much. But Lily wasn’t blameless, regardless.

Now that Kate knew the truth, it made sense to her that Lily had given Blaire her own bedroom at the beach, that she’d engineered her living with them in high school. She wished her mother had trusted her enough to confide in her. Kate realized she’d concocted an image of perfection about her mother. She’d put her in her own ivory tower, where everything she did was right and proper. But Lily had been human, of course, just like the rest of them, and fallible. It pained her to think of her mother bearing the burden of this secret for over twenty years after her own mother and father passed. Had she been able to go to her mother and mourn the child that she’d lost, or had it all been taken care of and swept under the rug, never to be discussed again?

Kate hadn’t seen Blaire before she left. She couldn’t forgive Blaire yet for what she’d put Kate through. Or maybe Kate couldn’t forgive herself for her part in depriving Blaire of the mother she needed. All she knew was that she couldn’t face her yet. The memory of her systematic and cruel campaign of terror was too fresh.