Part 2: Before my husband passed away, he asked me to deliver a sealed letter to a woman I'd never met — after she read the first line, she looked at me and asked, "Did he tell you everything?"

"My husband was going to expose them."

I looked at Emily.

She was crying.

Julia held her hand.

I wanted to tell them both that everything would be all right.

But for the first time, I couldn't make myself say it.

Because I no longer knew what Zane had done.

And I no longer knew whether the man I'd spent thirty-five years loving deserved the trust I'd given him.

***

Then Emily reached into her handbag.

"Mom, there's one more thing."

My stomach tightened.

"What?"

She handed me a photograph.

It showed Zane standing outside Cedar Vale Maternity Home.

He was younger.

His hair was dark.

Beside him stood Rebecca.

She looked nineteen.

Pregnant.

Terrified.

But there was someone else in the photograph.

A woman standing near the doorway.

I stared at her.

My heart stopped.

Because I recognized her.

It was my mother.

My own mother.

The woman who'd helped me prepare the nursery before Emily was born.