Chapter 3 - The Box Frank Was Terrified I’d Open
I couldn’t enter the house.
For several minutes, I simply stood on the porch staring at Rebecca.
Every rational part of my mind demanded that I leave.
Call the police.
Call Daniel.
Call the hospital.
Do anything except follow a stranger who looked like an older version of my dead mother into an unfamiliar house after midnight.
Rebecca seemed to understand.
“You don’t have to come inside.”
“Who are you?”
“I told you.”
“You told me your name.”
My voice rose.
“That doesn’t tell me who you are.”
She nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
Rain blew beneath the porch roof.
Rebecca folded her arms around herself.
“Rachel was my identical twin sister.”
“My mother had no siblings.”
“That’s what Frank told you.”
“My grandparents never mentioned you.”
A painful expression crossed her face.
“The people you called your grandparents weren’t Rachel’s parents.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
Rebecca looked toward the open doorway.
“There are things you need to see.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Then stay on the porch.”
She disappeared inside.
I immediately took out my phone and called Daniel.
He answered before the second ring.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“There’s a woman here.”
“What woman?”
“She says she was my mother’s twin sister.”
Silence.
“What?”
“She looks like Mom, Daniel.”
My voice cracked.
“Not kind of. She looks exactly like her.”
“Leave.”
“I should.”
“Get in your car.”
Then Rebecca returned carrying a cardboard box.
She placed it on the porch floor and stepped away.
“I need to call you back,” I whispered.
“Don’t hang—”
I ended the call.
Rebecca opened the box.
Photographs.
Dozens of them.
She selected one and held it toward me.
I didn’t want to take it.
But I did.
Two little girls sat on a porch swing.
Maybe eight years old.
One was smiling directly at the camera.
The other was crossing her eyes.
On the back, written in faded blue ink:
RACHEL + BECCA — SUMMER 1972.
My hands began shaking.
Another photograph showed them at sixteen.
Another at graduation.
Another standing beside a lake.
Then Rebecca handed me one that made my knees buckle.
My mother.
Pregnant.
Very pregnant.
Frank stood behind her.
His arms wrapped around her stomach.
He looked much younger, but unmistakably Frank.
They weren’t posing like two people who had recently met.
They looked intimate.
Happy.
In love.
I looked at Rebecca.
“When was this?”
“Three weeks before you were born.”
I nearly dropped the photograph.
“That’s impossible.”
Rebecca said nothing.
“Frank didn’t meet my mother until I was four.”
“No.”
“He married her when I was four.”
Rebecca’s eyes closed.
“No.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to be sorry!”
I was shouting now.
“For thirty-five years, I knew exactly one thing about my childhood. Frank met Mom when I was four, married her, and when she died, he raised me. That is my life.”
Rebecca whispered, “It’s the life they created for you.”
“They?”
“Frank and Rachel.”
My chest tightened.
“My mother lied too?”
Rebecca didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
I stepped away.
“I’m going back to the hospital.”
“You should.”
The response surprised me.
Rebecca looked devastated.
“But before you go, there’s something Frank wanted you to have.”
“He sent me here to hear the truth.”
“Yes.”
“So tell me.”
Rebecca stared at me for a long time.
Then she asked, “What did Frank tell you about your biological father?”
I remembered the explanation.
His name was Michael.
He had disappeared before I was born.
Young.
Irresponsible.
Not ready to be a father.
There were no photographs.
No letters.
No records I had ever seen.
I had never cared much.
Why chase a man who abandoned me when Frank had chosen me?
“He left.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“There was no Michael.”
Cold moved through my body.
“Then who was my father?”
Rebecca began crying.
And suddenly I knew.
Not logically.
Not because anyone had explained it.
I knew because of the photograph in my hand.
Frank behind my pregnant mother.
His palms resting protectively over her stomach.
His smile.
Her smile.
And thirty-five years of little things I had never questioned.
Frank telling me I had his temper, then quickly correcting himself.
Frank knowing I was allergic to penicillin before I had ever been prescribed it.
Frank once laughing that I had inherited my terrible singing voice “from the wrong side of the family,” then going strangely quiet.
I whispered, “No.”
Rebecca cried harder.
I backed away.
“No.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Say it.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Say it!”
“Frank was your biological father.”
The world went silent.
I could see Rebecca’s mouth moving afterward, but I heard nothing.
Frank.
My father.
My actual father.
The man who had supposedly chosen to raise another man’s daughter had never been my stepfather.
He had been my father all along.
It should have made me happy.
Instead, rage erupted inside me.
“Why?”
Rebecca flinched.
“Why would they lie about that?”
“It wasn’t because they were ashamed of you.”
“I didn’t ask what it wasn’t!”
I threw the photograph into the box.
“Why?”
Rebecca glanced toward the house.
“Because someone was looking for you.”
My anger stalled.
“What?”
“Someone who could never be allowed to find you.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
Fear.
Not old fear.
Current fear.
Even after all these years.
She whispered, “Your grandfather.”
I laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“My grandfather died when I was twelve.”
“The man you knew as Grandpa Henry wasn’t related to you.”
“Then who was he?”
“Frank’s uncle.”
Another piece of my life cracked open.
I grabbed the porch railing.
Rebecca continued carefully.
“Your real maternal grandparents died before you were born. Your paternal grandmother died when Frank was nineteen.”
“And my paternal grandfather?”
Rebecca’s mouth tightened.
“His name was Walter Mercer.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“He owned several construction companies throughout the Midwest,” she said. “He had money. Connections. People who owed him favors.”
“Why would he be looking for me?”
“Because Frank ran away from him.”
“Why?”
Rebecca’s eyes dropped.
“Because Walter was violent.”
That word hung between us.
Rebecca sat on the porch step.
I remained standing.
“Frank grew up terrified of his father. When he was eighteen, Walter beat him badly enough to put him in the hospital. Frank left soon after.”
I imagined my dad at eighteen.
Thin.
Scared.
Alone.
It didn’t fit the man I knew.
“He changed his name?”
“Eventually.”
“Frank wasn’t his name?”
“It was his middle name. His birth name was Thomas Franklin Mercer.”
I sank onto the opposite porch step.
Rebecca continued.
“He met Rachel years later. They fell in love. Frank told her about Walter, but he believed his father had stopped looking for him.”
She swallowed.
“He was wrong.”
Rain whispered against the bushes.
“When Rachel became pregnant, Walter somehow learned about it.”
“Why would he care?”
“Control.”
Rebecca’s voice hardened.
“Walter believed family belonged to him. He had already lost Frank. He wasn’t willing to lose Frank’s child.”
I felt sick.
“He threatened them?”
“Yes.”
“Why not call the police?”
“They did.”
Rebecca gave a bitter smile.
“This was a different time. Walter had friends in places that mattered. Most of his threats were made through other people. Nothing stayed on paper. Nothing could be proved.”
I looked again at the cardboard box.
“So they invented Michael?”
“Yes.”
“And Frank pretended not to be my father?”
“Yes.”
“Why wait until I was four?”
“They didn’t.”
I looked up.
Rebecca’s eyes met mine.
“That part of your childhood was constructed later.”
My heart hammered.
“What does that mean?”
“You lived under another name for your first four years.”
I stared at her.
“What name?”
Rebecca hesitated.
“Emma Mercer.”
My hand instinctively moved to my chest.
That was not my name.
It couldn’t be.
“Frank and Rachel moved repeatedly,” Rebecca said. “Then when you were four, Walter’s men found you.”
A strange buzzing filled my ears.
“What happened?”
Rebecca looked away.
“That was the beginning of the end.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“My mother’s illness.”
Rebecca didn’t speak.
I stood.
“My mother died from an illness.”
Nothing.
“Rebecca.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“Rachel wasn’t sick.”
The porch seemed to move beneath my feet.
I whispered, “How did she die?”
Rebecca’s answer was almost inaudible.
“Car accident.”
I stared at her.
“Why would Frank tell me she was sick?”
“Because the accident wasn’t an accident.”
My body went rigid.
“What are you saying?”
“Rachel had been receiving threats. She wanted to go to the authorities again. Two days before she died, someone tampered with her car.”
I felt bile rise in my throat.
“Walter?”
“We could never prove it.”
“Did Frank believe it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“Yes.”
I stumbled away.
I needed air.
Space.
A reality in which my dead mother had simply gotten sick and my stepfather had heroically stayed.
That story hurt.
But this one was unbearable.
My phone rang.
The hospital.
I answered instantly.
“Hello?”
A nurse spoke gently.
“Is this Frank’s daughter?”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“Yes.”
“I’m very sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
No.
“Your father passed away a few minutes ago.”
I sank onto the wet porch floor.
The phone slipped from my hand.
Frank had died.
While I was discovering who he really was.
Rebecca knelt beside me.
I wanted to push her away.
Instead, I collapsed against the woman who wore my mother’s face.
May you like
And for the first time since I was four years old, I cried for both of my parents.
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