“Looks like his father established the firm like fifty years ago, so that’s a lot. Married, two kids. Son, Oliver III, is thirty-two, daughter, Anna, twenty-eight, so our age. Everything seems solid and aboveboard. And I like that this Mr. Doyle told you to get a lawyer.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Cleo added. “You end up with a house on the Maine coast. You live there a few years—you can work anywhere, right?”
“You think I should—”
“I think you should seriously think about it. Hell, Sonya, it’s an adventure, and you’re due. And you’d find out more about your ancestry. Your grandparents are always going to be your grandparents. Nothing changes that. This is just more, and a chance to clear your decks, and find out that more.”
Sonya pulled into her mother’s drive. “I have a life here, a home here. You and Mom are here. I’m trying to establish my business.”
“Working backward, you’re just as capable of establishing your business there as here. Your mom and I are always going to be there for you, and Maine’s not a distant planet. You have a duplex, which I know very well has always been a stepping stone for you, and right now, your life here is work.”
She gave Sonya’s hand another squeeze. “But stay or go, let’s find out what there is to find out. And step one to all of it is telling your mom.”
They found Winter putting another log on the fire.
“Well, look at this! I was just thinking about making do with a grilled cheese for dinner, now it’s a party.”
Then she got a good look at her daughter’s face. “Something’s wrong.”
“Not wrong, but we need to sit down and talk.”
“You’re scaring me, baby.”
“I don’t mean to, and there’s nothing scary. But let’s sit down.”
Sonya took off her coat, her hat. “A man came to see me today. A lawyer, from Maine.”
“A lawyer? Are you in trouble?”
“No, Mom. Stop.” After putting the packets on the coffee table, Sonya took Winter’s hands, drew her down to sit on the sofa.
“Dad had a twin brother.”
“What? No, he didn’t. Honey, this has to be some sort of con because—”
“Nan and Grandpa didn’t know, and I’ll get to all that. But Dad had a twin. Their birth mother died when they were born, and their birth father couldn’t handle it. He ended up committing suicide.”
“Sonya—”
“Just hear me out on this part, please. The family separated them—I don’t know why. The aunt took one, and they put the other—Dad—up for adoption. A private adoption. You know Nan and Grandpa adopted Dad privately, and weren’t given any information on the birth parents. The brother, Dad’s brother, didn’t know any of this, any more than Dad knew. The brother—his name was Collin Poole—found out right before Dad died, and never had the chance to connect.”
“What does this man want from you, Sonya?”
“Nothing. He died last month. The lawyer came to see me because Collin Poole left me, well, pretty much everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“He made me his heir—in his will. There’s a house in Maine, a small percentage of the family business that’s been around a couple hundred years. There’s everything in the house, there’s a trust to maintain the house, and financial accounts. He left you antique diamond-and-sapphire earrings.”
“What?”
“I think—I guess—he wanted to leave his brother’s wife something, a family heirloom. The lawyer, Mr. Doyle, and Collin Poole were friends, since they were boys. Collin never had children—his wife died—and so I’m his brother’s only child. His niece.”
She took out the photo Oliver had shown her. “This is Mr. Doyle and Collin Poole.”
“Oh God. God! Are you sure this is real?”
“It’s starting to feel that way.”
“I need to—” Winter stood up, walked to the window, to the fireplace, back again.
“Your father had dreams sometimes. Recurring. One was he looked in the mirror, but the face looking back wasn’t quite his. And the man looking back was talking to him, but he couldn’t hear. He’d had them most of his life. A boy looking in the mirror at a boy with his face—almost his face.
“Sometimes he’d draw the dream and show me. This is the face.”