“For four years.
They were very young.
Very much in love.” She paused.
“And then Catherine became pregnant, and everything that came after — it destroyed them both.”
“What happened to her?”
Miriam looked at the document in my hands.
“She d*ed,” she said.
“Three days after you were born.”
I set the birth certificate on the table between us.
I couldn’t hold it anymore.
“So the woman who raised me—”
“Was not your biological mother, no.
Her name was Susan.
Frank met her two years after Catherine passed.
She knew everything.
She agreed to raise you as her own.
She loved you, Claire — I want you to understand that.
What she gave you was real.”
“But she never told me.”
“Frank asked her not to.
He was terrified of what the truth would do to you.” Miriam’s voice tightened slightly.
“And there was another reason.
A reason that goes beyond grief and good intentions.”
