The Address(91)

Of course, if the test came back negative, not only would she be out a grand, but there’d be no chance of getting any payment for all her work for Melinda, who’d be livid at Bailey’s workaround. She’d be right back at square one.

Through the receiver came labored breathing. “My father wanted nothing to do with that family, and for good reason. I regret the day I allowed your mother to get us back under their influence. I don’t see why neither of you are able to settle for what you already have.”

He spoke as if her mother were still alive. Which broke Bailey’s heart and pissed her off at the same time.

“We have two different perspectives.” She kept her voice even, trying to persuade him, not put him on the defensive any more than he already was. “The way I see it, and the way Mom saw it, was that it’s a big world out there. You and Granddad hid from it, and Mom and I didn’t.”

“It’s not a matter of hiding. You’ve been trying to run from me ever since you were in high school. Like you’re ashamed of me, who I am.”

She couldn’t deny that it wasn’t true, because it was. “I want more out of my life. What’s so wrong with that?”

“So go ahead and go after it.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. But I need you. The blood sample has to come from the male line: from Theodore Camden to Granddad to you.”

“Here’s what I don’t get: You disappear for months at a time, then call demanding me to prove I’m related to a family my father despised.”

The words stuck in her throat. “I was in rehab, Dad. I should have told you earlier, but I wasn’t sure how. I’m sorry.”

“When did you get out?”

“Last month.”

Silence. She pictured him shaking his head, his shoulders caving in under the weight of disappointment.

“You’re battling the same demons as my father. I saw what it cost him.”

He was skidding the conversation off topic, and she refused to be deterred. “Maybe there are some long-lost family members who deserve to be brought into the light, ones that your father never even knew about. I’ve been reading about the madhouse where Sara Smythe was sent to. It’s horrifying, the suffering she most likely endured. The woman who might very well be your grandmother.”

“What you’re doing here, trying to unravel the past, is no good.” His irritation radiated through the phone line. “Whatever happened back then, in madhouses or fancy apartment houses, has nothing to do with us, with you. I know who I am. I run an auto repair shop and when I have free time, I go out on the ocean and fish. That’s it, but it’s real. You, meanwhile, are chasing ghosts. Stop muddying your life up with all this crap.”

How dare he tell her what to do? First Renzo, now this. She might have made bad decisions in the past, but she was trying to make amends. In the meantime, there was a good chance she shared a bloodline with a woman who’d fought her own demons and lost. Bailey refused to let that happen to her, and Sara Smythe was the key to figuring out how. Certainly not through any of the men in her life, who had let her down when she’d needed them most. Jack was the one who’d retreated into a shell since his wife’s death, letting his daughter run amok in the city with no guidance, no refuge.

Her voice cracked, as it always did when she was livid. “I’ve admitted I’m an alcoholic. I’m going to meetings; I’ve been trying to stay sober. You may not have the same drinking problems, but I learned all about dry drunks in rehab. They’re withholding, negative, defensive. That’s you. So don’t think that you’re any better than me or Granddad. Or that you’ve escaped the past.”

For a few seconds, she couldn’t hear anything other than the blood pounding in her ears. Until it was replaced by the faint click of Jack hanging up and the dull murmur of a dead phone line.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT



New York City, October 1885


“Where were you?”

Sara didn’t waste any time when Theo came in to work the next morning. She followed him into his office and closed the door. The air behind him smelled of sweat and alcohol, although he looked fine. Fresh, almost.

“Good morning to you, too.”

“Your wife was ill last night and there was no one there to take care of her. Your daughter was out in the hallway, the boy crying in his crib.”

With a deep sigh, Theo hung up his coat and hat on the coatrack. He didn’t bother answering right away, instead leafed through the stack of correspondence she’d put on the corner of his desk. “Has the check from Mr. Smith-Roberts arrived?”

The audacity of the question, and lack of response to her own, stunned.

“You are trying to change the subject?”

He rubbed his eyes, and for a brief moment a look of utter exhaustion crossed his features. “No, I am not trying to change the subject. Minnie needs to be sent back upstate, the doctor is insisting on it, and that sum will cover part of the funds to do so.”

“I see.” She sat down in the chair opposite him, still unwilling to offer any comfort. “Yes, it did come and I’ll deposit it today.”

He smiled and stared at her as if for the first time. “You are a goddess, Sara. I am sorry to put you through what you went through last night. I have tried so hard to keep you and my family separate, as I promised to do.”