“Who was he to you?” I asked, still so confused by all I knew, all I still didn’t know.
She touched the photo of his face with trembling fingers. “He was my best friend growing up. We did everything together. Almost like a brother and sister, until we hit puberty, and then suddenly our relationship felt very different.”
“You fell in love,” I finished for her.
“I did,” she admitted with a sad shake of her head. “And for a while I thought he loved me, too, but then Marilyn Jones came along.”
“The name on the birth certificate.” I remembered that first night standing out here by myself as I read the shocking contents of his letter, saw my mom’s real birth certificate for the first time.
She nodded. “Your real nan.”
“I don’t understand. What happened?” I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder, urging her on. There was still so much more that hadn’t been said.
“I don’t know what happened to Marilyn, only that William said she was gone, and he was going back to war. He was worried about his daughter, about Laura, your mother. And he was right to worry because he died in battle later that year.”
Tears pricked at my eyes for the friend Nan had lost, for the grandfather I’d never gotten the chance to know. “Oh, Nan, I’m so sorry.”
She sniffed and smiled up at me. “By then, I’d met and fallen for your grandfather. We legally adopted your mother and raised her as our own, always fearing that Marilyn would come calling and take our daughter away. For years, we looked over our shoulders. Not hiding, since I was in the public spotlight given my choice of work, but always watching.”
“And then what happened?”
She shook hard, and I knew that we’d reached the hardest part of the story. This was the part of the memory she’d tried so hard to forget.
“When your mother was eleven, Marilyn found us. She came to one of my shows and confronted me after. Said William’s sister had told her what he’d done and that she wanted her baby back.” Tears splashed into her tea, but she wasn’t drinking it, anyway.
I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t move. What had almost happened? How different would my mom’s life be if…? And would I have even been born?
“Oh my gosh, all those years later? What did you do?” I couldn’t stand another moment not knowing.
“I agreed to meet her the next day, to bring Laura.” Her voice cracked here. “And then your grandfather and I packed up and left town.”
“To Blueberry Bay,” I whispered.
“To Blueberry Bay,” she confirmed.
“What happened to Marilyn?”
Nan shook her head vigorously. Her tea sloshed over the edges of her cup, but she didn’t react. “I don’t know. We walked away from everything so that we could keep our family together. Your mother hadn’t been born to us, but she was ours. And I didn’t know why William sent his only daughter away, but I knew him and knew he must have had his reasons.”
“Wow.” I breathed heavily, still in shock. “Does Mom know about all this?”
“Of course not.” Nan’s voice faltered in a rare show of fragility. “How can I tell her that I stole her?”
And just like that my legs worked again. I pulled my nan to her feet and hugged her tight. “You didn’t know. Your best friend gave her to you, and you trusted him.”
“Back then, yes,” she whispered into my hair. “But I made a choice when Marilyn found us in New York. A selfish one that’s kept Laura from knowing her real mother and you from knowing your real nan.”
“You’re my real nan,” I said, wrapping my arms around her even tighter. “I told you nothing can change that. Not even this.”
“I appreciate that, dear.” She pulled back and studied me with a small smile and bright eyes. “Sometimes I think I let myself fall even more in love with you than I allowed myself to love your mother because I knew no one would show up and try to take you away.”
This explained so much, why she had been the main one to raise me even though my parents were here and capable. Whatever the reasons for it, I’d loved my childhood and I loved my life. I loved the woman who had risked so much to give it to me.
I kissed her on the cheek. “I’ve loved every single day with you, Nan. Well, every day except for the one you took Paisley to a motel and hid from me.”
We smiled at each other, then laughed together for what felt like the first time in ages.
“You don’t hate me?” she asked with a squeak.
“I could never hate you.” I paused before saying the next part in case it hurt her. “But I do want to meet her.”
Nan nodded. “I figured you might.”
“Where do we start?” I needed to know more, but I also needed us to do this side by side.
“Together.” She reached out her hand and grasped mine. “I’ve spent so many years running from the truth. Now let’s walk toward it together.”
Chapter Twenty
A lot happened rather quickly after that.
Nan showed me all the old photos and mementos she’d kept hidden for fear of exposing her secret history growing up in Georgia and falling in unrequited love with her best friend. I still didn’t know why William had decided to entrust his baby to Nan when her mother was still very much alive. I think the only person who might know the answer to that was Ms. Marilyn Jones herself, but we had no idea where to start looking for her—or even if she was still alive all these years later.
Pringle took full credit for solving the case and decided his fee should be doubled for just how fast “he” had managed to solve the mystery. He also demanded that his payment be delivered within three days or it would need to be doubled again.
That payment? A new home, since we had irreparably damaged his under-porch apartment with our shovels. And because he had decided to ask for double, he also demanded that we erect new office headquarters for Pringle Whisperer, P.I.
Luckily, we knew the very best handyman in all of Blueberry Bay, a certain Mr. Brock “Cal” Calhoun. Not only did he do fast, quality work, but he also didn’t ask too many questions—like why a single woman and her grandmother needed not one, but two, tree forts erected in their backyard or why one of those forts also needed to be outfitted with electricity and a satellite TV dish.
Once Cal had finished building the twin tree forts and Pringle was all moved in, I introduced him to reality TV, the ultimate source of juicy secrets and real human drama—at least that’s what I told him.
Sure enough, he immediately got sucked in to one of the longest running reality competitions of them all, which meant there were plenty of back episodes for him to watch. He enjoyed laughing at the humans and their weak skills when it came to surviving in the wild.
“Survivor!” he quipped somewhere into his umpteenth hour of viewing. “Ha! Put a raccoon in there with them, then you’ll see what a real survivor looks like!”
Pringle had already begun to spend all his time in front of his new TV, which thankfully meant he stayed out of trouble. Well, at least for now.
Brilliantly, Octo-Cat had a fairly easy time convincing the raccoon to join our investigation firm rather than continuing to compete with us.
“Think about it, Pringle,” my cat crooned. “You like secrets. Now your whole job is keeping track of our secrets. In fact, that’s your new job title—Pringle, MSK. Master Secret Keeper.”
“Oooh, that’s even better than P.I.,” he crowed. “It’s got more letters. Better letters!”
Really, all that happened was that we moved our filing cabinets into his rarely used work fort, but at least I knew they were safe there, given the ferocity he used to protect all his favorite treasures.
When Cal had finished building the tree forts, he also fixed the hole in our roof so that no other animals would be able to crawl into our attic. He helped us clear out the space under our porch, too, and then laid down a solid stone base—also to keep the wildlife out. I didn’t mind getting up close and personal with my animal neighbors, but we needed to have at least some boundaries.