Bluestone, Virginia

So how did Libby handle the news that Elaine Carter Grant was her birth mother?

She walked out her back door and toward the shed, where she had left her newly rediscovered photography equipment. With thoughts of storming Woodmont Estate chewing on her, she pulled all the remaining covers off the equipment and tossed them in the trash. The dustcovers had not exactly done their job, so she grabbed a rag and started wiping down the black bellows camera that sat on a tripod. Next, she hauled out the glass negative-development box and set it at the end of a slightly shorter workstation that she and her father had built when she was fifteen. Neither had carpentry skills, so the bench had always been a little lopsided and required shims under the back-right leg.

Testing the table for sturdiness, she was pleased it did not wobble. Her father had gone out of his way not to leave her any problems, except the birth-mother-identity issue. “No biggie, right, Dad? Just a minor damn detail.”

Until she bought developing chemicals, the best she could do now was wipe down the enlarger that she used to develop thirty-five-millimeter film. Again, no chemicals to actually develop the negatives and prints, but that problem was easily fixed with a couple of online orders.

“Jesus, Dad,” she muttered as she settled a box of old cameras on her workbench. “All the things you could have told me while you were sick!”

It was all she could do not to slam down the box of old cameras, coughing as dust plumed around her. “I could have done with less talk about where the water shutoff valve to the house was and more talk about genetics.”

Libby quickly did the math and realized that Elaine would have been about twenty-two when she’d had Libby. Young, but certainly not a teen mother. And her family were hardly paupers.

“And what the hell was Elaine doing in New Jersey?” she shouted to the empty room.

Had Elaine been shacking up with her birth daddy or taking summer school or hiding out in a group home for unwed mothers? The last theory would have held true if Libby had been born in the 1960s or even the 1970s. But in 1989 people were pretty cool about an unwed pregnancy, right?

It was clear her great-grandmother Olivia had known about her. But what about her great-granddaddy? Was he some kind of throwback judgmental ass? Was that why she was such a big secret? She rubbed the back of her neck. Nothing like finding out that she had not been wanted by a family with the means to care for her.

And what about her birth daddy? Did he figure into the equation at all, or was he just an afterthought?

When her phone rang at one o’clock in the morning, Libby fished it out of her back pocket. “Sierra.”

“Why are the shed lights on?” She yawned. “My mother is concerned that you’re doing something dangerous.”

Libby drew in a deep breath. “Setting up my photography equipment.”

“Again, why this time of night?”

“Haven’t you been after me for months about this?” Libby asked.

“Not in the middle of the night, dear. Did something happen at Woodmont?”

She rolled her head from side to side. “Nothing happened at Woodmont. Elaine’s daughter was a little rude, but it was no big deal.”

“What did she say?”

Olivia’s letter explained a lot about Lofton’s behavior at dinner. Libby would bet that Lofton, her baby sister, knew about the adoption. (God, had she really strung those words together?) Which led to the next question: Who else knew? Ted? What about Colton or Margaret?

Libby swatted away the buzzing thoughts. Too much to process. “I found my dad’s deed to the house.” She took the coward’s way, but she simply was not ready to talk about this. It had taken her months to speak about her miscarriages, and though finding a birth mother certainly was a different kind of gut strike, it hurt so bad she could not begin to voice her feelings.

“Set up an appointment with the bank,” Libby said. “The sooner the better.”

“Are you sure about this? I mean we’re talking about putting your father’s house up for collateral.”

She lifted a Brownie camera out of the box. It was small and compact. She had never found film to test it out. Turning away from the equipment, she shut off the light and shut the shed door on her way out. “It’s my house now, Sierra. And you’re right. I can’t just let it collect dust.”

“Yeah, but this is not what I was aiming for.”

“I know. And I’m glad it can come to some good use. Set up the meeting. The sooner you can start your business, the better.”

“Do you want me to come over? You sound a little weird.”

She started back to the house she had grown up in, wondering if it had all been a lie. “What do you know about Elaine Grant?”

“What brought her up? Wait. Something did happen at dinner.”

“No. Dinner was fine. I’m just curious about Elaine.”

Sierra sighed, as if sensing now was not the time to press. “I know she moved away after college. After her grandfather died, she inherited the property but really didn’t start visiting regularly until after her grandmother died. My mother always thought Elaine must have had a falling-out with her grandmother.”

“Like what?” Libby asked.

“Not privy to the workings of the Carter family. I know Elaine didn’t show any interest in Woodmont until a year or two ago.”

“Why did she come back?”

“I don’t know. Maybe older and wiser, and the old wounds had healed. Shame your dad isn’t still around. I think she and your dad were friends.”

She climbed the back steps and into her kitchen. “Why do you say that?”

“I had taken Mom to the Hotel Roanoke’s brunch. She loves their french toast and the mimosas. Anyway, I saw Elaine and your dad at a table. Mom being Mom went over and said hello, and I went along for the ride.”

“And?”

“They both looked a little tense.”

“Tense how?”

“Like a big conversation. Neither one looked well, and they didn’t look happy to see anyone from Bluestone,” Sierra said.

“You never told me.”

“I guess I forgot about it. Didn’t seem that important. I mean, it was a public place. And they said they were looking to do a fundraiser for the pediatric cancer unit at UVA. It never happened, but then your dad passed away.”

The fundraiser excuse did not smell right. They had to have been talking about Libby. “Okay. Well, unlike the fundraiser, your bank meeting will take place, and you’ll get the loan,” Libby said.

“You going to stay up all night?” Sierra asked.

“Most likely.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to come over?”

“Sierra, sometimes grief rears its ugly head and won’t let me sleep. You know what I mean?”

“I do. Have you been on Jeremy’s Instagram page again?”

“Guilty,” she lied.

“Just unfollow him, Libby.”

“I know. And I will.”

“You need to stop looking back.”

A spontaneous, tense laugh burst out. “Don’t I know it. But tell that to the past. It keeps biting me in the ass.”

“I could bake you cookies,” Sierra offered.