“So what happened?”

“When Sinclair found out that I was pregnant, he threw me out.”

“Just like that?”

Mary nodded. “Sinclair said that he didn’t care what I did with the baby as long as I just got out of his life right away. I was so scared, Laura. Terrified. I never felt so alone in all my life. I had nobody to turn to. I’d never had many girlfriends except on a superficial level. They thought I was pretty and popular but no one ever wanted to know me. I mean, there were no flesh and blood and feelings in pretty Mary. I was just a beautiful painting or landscape for people to stare at and admire. Nothing more. You must know the feeling.”

Laura did. “So what did you do?”

Mary went over to the sink, turned on the faucet, and filled a glass. “I cried a lot. And then I sat down and tried to think it through. What was I going to do? Abortion was not a real option back then. I mean, you could get one if you had the money but James handled all of our finances. He would know in a second.

“I considered telling James the truth, but can you imagine what would have happened? He is very possessive. If he had ever learned what had happened—Well, I don’t know what he would have done to me.”

“Probably divorced you.”

“Probably,” Mary agreed.

“So what did you decide to do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” she asked. “I pretended the child was his.”

“How? You just said that you hadn’t slept together in months.”

“The night after Sinclair threw me out, I started seducing James. Almost every night for months, we made love.”

Laura felt sick to her stomach. “Seduction was always the answer for you, wasn’t it, Mother?”

“I wish there had been another solution, but what else could I do? I had to make him think you were his child. It was not easy. You were a very difficult pregnancy. For weeks I was sick as a dog and delirious. I vomited every morning. I was bleeding profusely. I thought I was going to miscarry, and God forgive me, I wanted to so badly. Days went by that I spent in the grips of a fever and could barely remember anything.”

“But you still managed to seduce him.”

“I had to, Laura. I had to make him think the baby was his. There were two big obstacles standing in the way of my deception: timing and family resemblance. You see, if everything kept on schedule, you were going to be born nine months after I became pregnant by Sinclair, which would have been a month or two too soon if you were really James’s baby.”

“How did you get around that?”

“I figured that in the basking light of parenthood, I could gloss it over as an early arrival. But luckily, you were a very late baby anyway. I didn’t need to lie.”

“And family resemblance?”

“You ended up looking just like me. No one noticed if there was a similarity between you and James. We moved to Boston a year later. My secret was safe. With Sinclair dead, the only other person who knew the truth was my sister.”

“You told Judy?” Laura asked in disbelief.

“I needed to trust someone, Laura. I couldn’t do this by myself. So I confided in the one person I could always depend on.”

“Wasn’t she still furious at you for stealing Sinclair from her?”

“We were sisters, Laura. Just like you and Gloria. Judy could no more turn her back on me in a time of crisis than you could turn yours on Gloria. Without her help, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“So Aunt Judy knew everything?”

“Yes.”

“And she was going to tell me, wasn’t she? That was why she called me the other day.”

“Yes,” Mary said slowly. “I think she planned on doing just that.”

“So you killed her, too.”

“What?”

“You set the fire.”

“She was my sister. . . .”

“The same sister you stole men from?”

“That’s different. I loved Judy—you know that. And she loved me.”

“So tell me why Judy chose to betray your trust all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know, Laura. I wondered that myself. I know how it must look, but I did not set that fire. I swear. Try to understand. I was only trying to do what was best. And if you look at it from a distance, wasn’t it working out, Laura? Until you fell in love with David, everything was wonderful. James loves you more than anything in the world.”

“No, Mother. He loves a lie.”

“Don’t say that. He loves you. Biology doesn’t mean a damn thing. If we had adopted you, he’d still love you just as much, right?”

“But you didn’t adopt me. You created a lie.”

“A lie that was working just fine until you stopped listening to me.”

“Stopped listening to you?”

“Once I realized that David was Sinclair’s son, I begged and pleaded with you not to see him. Why didn’t you listen to me, Laura? Why didn’t you stay away from him? I tried to stop you. I was sure I could. But then you ran off to Australia and got married. So I followed you. I had no choice.”

“Why couldn’t you just tell me the truth?”

Mary’s eyes never left her daughter’s. “My deception was thirty years old by then, Laura. The lies were snugly wrapped around this family. I was afraid of what would happen if they were suddenly removed. So I went to Australia to talk with David, to tell him the truth. I told no one I was going—not even Judy. When I arrived, I called David at your hotel. He was surprised of course, but he agreed to meet me in my room at the Pacific International Hotel. We talked for a very long time. Oh, Laura, it was the most awful thing. David was so confused. One minute he was furious and storming about the room. The next he was crying. Every word I said tore him apart. He was so devastated. Remember, you’re hearing it after the fact. But David had to decide what to do. He loved you. He couldn’t live without you. But he also knew how badly you wanted children and how dangerous it would be to ignore the truth. Suddenly, his whole world was anchored to ice. And my words were pulling up that anchor. When I spoke to your father a few days later and he told me David had drowned, I knew that my words had been the cause of it. I just wanted him to leave you, Laura. You have to believe me. I wish there had been another way, but there wasn’t. I couldn’t just sit back and let you marry your brother. You see I had no choice, don’t you?”