Various monetary bequests, forty-five of his fifty-percent interest in the shipping company.
And to her shock, antique diamond-and-sapphire earrings to Winter Rogan MacTavish, her mother.
When she reached the end, she pressed her fingers to her eyes.
How was she supposed to think? How could she absorb any of this?
He’d left everything else to her—including a house and its land—eight-point-three acres’ worth. All its contents （inventory listed in a separate document）， a trust to maintain said house, property, and contents.
Life insurance policy, brokerage accounts, investments, and more she just couldn’t begin to comprehend.
But rolling over all of it, her father had a brother. A twin. He’d had family he’d never known.
And so had she.
She grabbed her phone.
“Cleo, I need you to go to Mom’s with me. Now.”
“What happened? Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s fine. Something’s happened, but I’ll explain on the way. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. Please.”
“Give me fifteen. Jesus, Sonya, you sound like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have. Fifteen.”
She dragged on boots, her coat—reminded herself of the cold and swung on a scarf, yanked on a wool cap. In five minutes, she was out the door, packets in hand.
Her mother needed to know, and not by a phone call. And she needed Cleo to talk her through it.
And hell, she guessed she’d need that lawyer.
* * *
She doubted she was coherent during the drive. God knew she didn’t feel coherent. Cleo’s reaction, as expected, hit shock, amazement, suspicion, curiosity, and some outrage.
“What kind of heartless excuse for a human separates brothers like that? You know your grandparents would have taken both babies.”
“Exactly what I said. God, why is there always so much traffic?”
“And what you’re saying tells me the grandmother, her daughter, on the Poole side, they could’ve kept both. They had the means.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why they did it, or hid it. I definitely got the sense from Mr. Doyle that the family hid it all, the real parentage, the twins. I don’t know why, and I don’t know what to do.”
“I wonder if your dad knew. I don’t mean knew-knew. But felt. Like they say twins can. And, oh, his poor brother, losing his bride, his love, on their wedding day. But think about it, Sonya. He was an artist, like your dad. They had that bond, even though they never knew.
“Where the hell is Poole’s Bay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s find out.” Cleo pulled out her phone, Googled. “Okay, pretty small, one of those juts of land along the Maine coast. It’s probably beautiful, scenic.”
“Whatever. It doesn’t make any sense, Cleo.”
“Sure it does. This Collin Poole didn’t know about your dad, until he did. He did some due diligence, made plans to contact him. And your dad died. That’s another blow.”
She reached over, gave Sonya’s hand a squeeze. “Think of it. You’ve just found out you have a brother, a twin brother your family kept from you. But before you can reach out to him, he’s gone. That’s devastating. But he must’ve felt the bond, so he left his brother’s only child his home, his—well, pretty much everything from what you’ve told me.”
“But why didn’t he contact Mom, or me?”
“Maybe he couldn’t face it, face the possibility of another emotional blow. What if you’d told him to stick it, or you’d been all, Fine, what’s in it for me?”
“I wouldn’t have done that.”
“I know that, Son, but maybe he was just too emotionally fragile to handle it. It seems like, in the end, he tried to do the right thing. He didn’t have to. You’d never have known. Or, if you did the DNA thing and found out, he still owed you nothing really.”
“Here’s why I called you.” Some of the tightness in her chest loosened. “Why I needed you to come with me.”
“When you’ve talked to your mom, when you’re smoothed out some, you need to find out all you can about him. And about all of it.”
“So I need that lawyer.”
“You do. Let me Google the other one. Oliver Henry Doyle II, you said. Poole’s Bay, Maine. Okay, okay, here we go. He’s fifty-seven—”
“Really? I put him ten years younger even when he took the flap cap off and I saw a lot of black, like his eyebrows, in with the gray.”