“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“Claire told Margaret not to look for her.”
“I know.”
“Then perhaps she still doesn’t want to be found.”
Mercer studied me.
“Perhaps.”
That answer irritated me.
“Everyone keeps protecting her choices by taking away mine.”
He considered that.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
He wrote an address on a piece of paper.
Not a home address.
A post-office box in Oregon.
“She wrote to me five years ago.”
My heart jumped.
“She’s alive?”
“She was then.”
“Did she mention me?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Mercer smiled.
“She asked whether your daughter still had red hair.”
I froze.
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Claire knows about Lily?”
“Apparently.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I looked at Stephen.
He looked as surprised as I felt.
Mercer pushed the address toward me.
“I think the decision belongs to you now.”
I wrote Claire a letter.
Not an accusation.
Not twenty-seven years of questions.
