Rory laid the album open in her lap, the yellowed pages crackling as she flipped through the usual milestones. First Christmas. First steps. First haircut. Eventually, the chubby toddler became a schoolboy. Anson at eight or nine, in a baseball uniform, freckles, and a gap-toothed grin. There was another of him in a football uniform, down on one knee, squinting against the sun. A few pages later, he stood grinning in a dark suit and crisp white shirt, a white carnation on his lapel. Prom night. And finally, on the next-to-the-last page, dressed in uniform khakis, his fair hair cropped close and combed back from his forehead: a boy no longer.
It was strange to see him grow up that way, a page at a time. In her mind, he’d been little more than a ghost, and now, here he was in black and white—and somewhere in the world, very much alive. She stared at the young man in the photo again, square-jawed and movie-star handsome.
“No wonder Soline fell head over heels. Your brother was gorgeous. And I can see the family resemblance. You have the same nose and cheekbones.”
“We both look like our father. The same hair and eyes.” She paused, folding her hands carefully in her lap. “Who do you take after?”
Rory blinked at her. “Me?”
“Would you say you look like your mother?”
It seemed a strange question, though she supposed Thia was entitled to a few questions of her own. “I have my mother’s coloring, and we have the same nose, broad and straight, but she’s not nearly as tall as I am. I think I must have gotten that from my father’s side.”
Thia opened the second album and slid it into Rory’s lap. “I think you should have a look at this.”
Rory found herself staring at a little girl of five or six in footie pajamas. She had a pair of perfectly matched dimples and a head full of pale ringlets. “Look at those curls. How adorable.”
Thia’s face remained carefully blank. “Look at the next photo and tell me what you see.”
Rory squinted at the photograph, taken several years later. A ruffled party dress and lace-trimmed socks, the curls tamer now, pulled up into a messy bun pinned with tiny white flowers, like a princess or a fairy. And strangely familiar. “This is you?”
“Yes.”
“My mother has almost the same picture of me. She dressed me up to play the piano for her friends, but I froze. I can’t get over how alike they are.”
“Who is your mother? Was she originally from Boston?”
Rory was still staring at the photo. She looked up. “I’m sorry . . . what?”
“Your mother. What’s her name?”
“Camilla Grant.”
“And her maiden name?”
“Lowell. Why?”
Thia slid a folded sheet of paper from beneath the remaining albums and handed it to Rory. “It’s time you see this.”
Rory scanned the document warily. The paper was heavy and yellow with age, neatly typed, and stamped at the top with the word COPY in red ink. It was dated January 17, 1945, had the words CERTIFICATE OF DECREE OF ADOPTION at the top, and was signed at the bottom by the clerk of the Circuit Court. But at that moment, there was only one word on the page that mattered—Lowell.
THIRTY-EIGHT
RORY
Rory felt her heart skitter against her ribs, like a stone skipping down the walls of a bottomless well. There was nothing to get hold of, nothing to break the sudden sensation of falling. Why was her mother’s name on this piece of paper? And what was the paper doing among Owen Purcell’s things? She was dimly aware of Thia beside her as she scanned the page again.
State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
Department of Vital Records
Certificate of Decree of Adoption.
Maiden name of natural mother: Soline Louise Roussel
Name of natural father: Unknown
Name of child at time of birth: n/a
Name of adoptive mother: Gwendolyn Lucille Lowell
Name of adoptive father: George Edward Lowell
Name of child after adoption: Camilla Nicole Lowell
Rory laid the paper in her lap and stared at it, head spinning. Her mother’s name—and her mother’s mother. What did it mean? Finally, she looked up at Thia. “I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do.”
“She’s . . . You’re saying . . .” She broke off again, pressing the flats of her fingers to her eyes. “I don’t understand.”
Thia pulled in a breath, as if gathering her words. “Your mother is the baby listed on the adoption decree, Rory. Which makes Soline your grandmother. And my brother your grandfather.”