Chapter 9 - The Girls Found Another Secret
Lena discovered it during homework.
She was researching family history.
“Uncle Cade?”
“Yes?”
“Who is Rose Mercer?”
Cade froze.
“Where did you see that?”
She held Caroline’s letters.
One mentioned Rose.
Rose deserves the same protection as Serena.
Cade frowned.
He had never heard the name.
Serena hadn’t either.
They searched records.
Rose Mercer.
Born twenty-two years before Serena.
Same father.
Different mother.
Their half-sister.
Malcolm had another daughter.
She disappeared from records at seventeen.
Julian traced her.
Rose lived in Milwaukee.
She ran a bakery.
Cade stared at the address.
“That’s it?”
Serena laughed.
“What were you expecting?”
“Secret syndicate.”
“Your brain is damaged.”
They drove there.
Rose Mercer opened the bakery door.
She was sixty-four.
Gray hair.
Warm eyes.
Caroline’s eyes.
Cade nearly forgot how to speak.
“You’re Malcolm’s children.”
“Yes.”
She sighed.
“I wondered when Caroline’s letters would surface.”
Rose knew everything.
Malcolm had fathered her before marrying Caroline.
He paid Rose’s mother to disappear.
Caroline found out years later.
Instead of resenting Rose, she secretly supported her.
“Your mother was the first Mercer who treated me like family.”
Cade swallowed.
“Why didn't you contact us?”
“Because Malcolm threatened Caroline.”
The story repeated.
Fear.
Silence.
Children separated by adults’ pride.
Rose met Lena and Mara.
Within ten minutes, Mara demanded cupcakes.
Rose approved.
Another branch returned.
Cade looked around the bakery.
Serena.
Rose.
The girls.
Family was becoming something larger than inheritance.
Then Rose revealed one last secret.
“Your mother had another account.”
Cade groaned.
“Of course.”
“Not money.”
“What?”
“Letters.”
Caroline wrote one letter for Cade each birthday until age thirty.
She knew she would not live to give them.
Rose had kept them.
Cade read them over several nights.
At eighteen:
Do not become responsible for everyone’s fear.
At twenty-one:
If your father teaches you that tenderness is weakness, remember he is wrong.
At twenty-five:
I hope you have found someone who makes you laugh.
At thirty:
If you are still chasing Malcolm’s approval, stop. Dead parents should not control living children.
Cade cried.
Claire sat beside him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
She held his hand.
“Good answer.”
May you like
He smiled.
Everyone in his life had started saying that.
