Chapter 9 - The Blue Box
Ethan didn't go to Linda.
He gave the voicemail to police.
Investigators searched her basement.
Behind Christmas decorations and old furniture they found a blue metal box.
Inside were birth certificates.
Letters.
Photographs.
Bank statements.
And one DNA report.
Rebecca and Ethan were not merely half siblings.
They shared the same biological father.
Dr. Howard Bell.
The fertility doctor.
Linda had concealed the truth for thirty-four years.
Rebecca sat beside Ethan when he learned.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Then Rebecca reached across the table.
“I spent my whole life thinking she threw me away because I wasn't good enough.”
Ethan shook his head.
“She lied to both of us.”
For the first time, brother and sister held hands.
Linda's greatest secret had been intended to divide them.
Instead, it brought them together.
But the blue box contained something else.
A letter written by Howard shortly before his death.
If Ethan ever learns the truth, tell him I am sorry. Linda's decision was not the story she has told him.
Below that sentence was another.
And Claire must never be blamed for what Linda chose.
I stared at my own name.
May you like
Howard Bell had died before I ever met Ethan.
So how could he possibly have written about me?
