I closed my eyes.
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Her voice trembled.
“Gloria, I’ve known about you my whole life.”
My heart broke.
“Then why didn’t you ever come find me?”
A long silence followed.
Then Eleanor whispered:
“Because our mother made me promise I wouldn’t.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
She began crying harder.
“She said if we ever met, everything our family had hidden would come out.”
I stared at the phone.
“What did she hide?”
Eleanor was silent.
Then she whispered:
“Gloria, Malcolm isn’t the reason Cedarline was built.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Your husband knew about me.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Henry?”
“Yes.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Then Eleanor said something that made my knees weaken.
“Henry is the one who introduced me to Malcolm.”
The room seemed to collapse.
My husband.
My business partner.
My unknown twin sister.
All connected.
For decades.
Without me.
