Beth Ann Wolcott, the woman who had adopted her and cared for her for twenty-five years, was also the woman who had abandoned her twenty-nine years ago.

Destiny didn't have three mothers. She only had two.

Destiny looked ill. Her mother looked ill. I couldn't see myself, but I'm sure I looked ill, too a" I felt sick enough. I'm surprised I didn't faint. I think it's a testament to my coping ability that I managed to stay on my feet.

After what seemed like hours, but probably was only seconds, we all started speaking at once.

"Kris, this can't be!" Destiny said in a voice that absolutely broke my heart.

"I'm so sorry, Destiny."

"Destiny, I'd like you to meet Kristin Ashe, a Jehovah's Witness who stopped by a"" her mother started to say.

And then it dawned on her that Destiny and I already knew each other. "But how do you two know each other? Have you met?"

"G.o.d, no, Kris, G.o.d no!"

"Destiny, I'm sorry!"

After much jostling, I finally managed to get in the door, past her protective mother. I took Destiny in my arms and held her tight. Without sound, she was sobbing. I could feel every emotion in her body.

Over her shoulder, I said to Beth Ann Wolcott, aka Liz Greaves, that Destiny was the one who had hired me.

At that, Destiny's mother fainted. She managed to get herself into the living room and onto a sofa before she actually pa.s.sed out, which was fortunate, because I was in no position to offer her a.s.sistance. I was too busy propping up Destiny.

As soon as it seemed safe to walk, I helped Destiny into the living room and put her on the sofa next to her mother, then I went in search of the kitchen. When I found it, I located two gla.s.ses, filled them with water, and brought them into the living room. I gave Destiny hers and then tried to revive her mother.

"Destiny is my real daughter?" were the first words she spoke when she woke up, and they were spoken more from a place of horror than joy.

"She is. The Kenwoods were the couple who adopted her from you, and as you know, they died in a car crash four years later."

"I never knew their name," she gasped.

"I'm sorry for what you've gone through," I said and I was.

I didn't like Liz Greaves. From the minute Destiny described her, I disliked her for her overbearing control and her inability to love Destiny. But Beth Ann Wolcott, that was a different story. She had made the choice to give up her child, but what a choice! When I was young, I'd thought there were good choices and bad choices. As I grew older, I came to realize that many of life's choices were between a bad option and one that was worse. That was the sort of choice Beth Ann had faced.

No wonder she was unable to love Destiny.

"I don't know what to call you," I said, which may have been a stupid thing to say under the circ.u.mstances, but it was all that came to mind. Liz? Mrs. Greaves? Beth Ann? Ms. Wolcott? What would it be?

"Liz. My formal name is Elizabeth Ann. Beth Ann's a nickname my family used. Beth Ann died the night it happened."

She never said what "it" was, but I knew she was referring to the rape. Destiny probably thought she was referring to the night she had to give up her daughter.

Destiny was lying in a fetal position on the couch, her body turned away from her mother, not saying a word.

"I'm so sorry, Destiny," her mother said and reached to touch her daughter's legs, but Destiny pulled away from her.

Wiping at the tears streaming down her face, Liz Greaves turned to me but clearly directed her words to Destiny.

"I thought this would be the happiest day of my life. I never thought I'd see my daughter again. It was especially painful for me when you started looking for your real mother, Destiny. I felt worse than ever, very sorry for myself. I was jealous of you. I've always wanted to look for my daughter, from the day I gave her, gave you, away, but I knew I never could. When Sister Frances called, I thought it was a miracle... and now this!"

Neither mother nor daughter seemed happy to have found each other, and I can't say I was thrilled that I was the one who had made all this possible.

Without a word to me or her mother, Destiny got up and left the room. I started to follow her, but her words and the coldness in her tone stopped me.

"Don't come, Kris. I want to be alone."

I sat down, or more like fell down, on the part of the couch she'd just vacated, not knowing what to do. Some people say they want to be alone when in fact they really need and want someone to be with them. Other people say they want to be alone and that's exactly what they mean. I wasn't sure which kind of person Destiny was, so I sought her mom's opinion.

"Should I follow her?"

"She's too stubborn. She always has been," her mother said with a trace of disdain.

"I don't think she should be alone right now. Maybe I should go after her."

"Give her a few minutes head start, that's what her father and I used to do, then follow her. I know exactly where she's going," she sniffled.

"Where?"

"There's a park a few blocks from here. When she was little and she ran away from home, which was quite often, we always found her at the park."

"Could you give me directions."

Liz Greaves gave me directions but then wouldn't let me leave.

"I wanted to keep her you know, but my family wouldn't permit it."

"Yes, Fran Green told me that," I said with perhaps not enough sympathy.

"It wasn't my family, though, not really."

"I know. Fran told me everything," I said, hoping to cut her off because I didn't think I could bear to listen to what was about to follow.

"She couldn't have told you everything," she said in a singsong voice. "She didn't know everything. I didn't tell her what it felt like to be violated, to have him constantly thrusting himself at me, over and over again, until I suffocated inside. She couldn't have told you that because I never told anyone."

"I'm sorry, Liz."

"Beth Ann Wolcott did die that night. And even though I couldn't bear to look at a child that was from his ugly seed, I never stopped missing my baby. She was mine, too. No one seemed to understand that. I gave away an evil man when I gave her away, but I gave away some of me, too."

"I'm sorry for you and for Destiny. I truly am." I stood up to leave. Awkwardly, I said, "I think I should be going now. I'd like to be with Destiny."

"Don't go yet."

"I think I should."

"But I'd like to talk to you. I have so many questions," she begged.

"When you can, Liz, ask Destiny the questions. She can answer them better than I can."

I started walking toward the door and made the mistake of walking by Liz Greaves. In desperation, she grabbed my arm.

"One question, please answer one question for me. I did agree to meet with you today. You owe me that much," she pleaded.

"Okay," I agreed, more so she'd let go of my arm than because I really felt like I owed her something.

"Why did she do it?"

"Do what?"

"Why did Destiny want to find her real mother? Why wasn't I enough for her?" was her haunting question.

"Probably for the same reason you wanted to find your real daughter," I said quietly, and then I pulled my arm away from her and walked out of there as fast as my legs could carry me. Her words chased me down the hall.

"But I tried to be a good mother. That's all I ever wanted to be, a good mother. I was involved in every aspect of Destiny's life. I gave her all the things I couldn't give my baby...."

And then you resented her for having them, I thought wryly as I closed the front door.

When I got outside, I couldn't help but look back at the house and think of all the pain it had held inside it for so many years. Pain that no one ever talked about. Destiny privately grieving, even though she was just a little kid. Liz Greaves privately grieving.

Suddenly, I couldn't bear the thought of all the sadness that lay beyond those walls. Behind the painted shutters. Behind the symmetrically placed bricks. Behind the picture windows. Behind all the things that made the place look inviting, there was so much pain.

Chapter 23.

I was in no mood to walk, so I drove the short distance to the park. I found Destiny exactly where her mother had said she would be. She was alone on the playground, sitting in one of the swings, not moving. I parked my car and walked toward her. When I was about halfway there, she saw me but didn't say anything. I raised my hand slightly and gave a little wave. She nodded grimly.

I delicately picked my way through the mud, trying to keep as much of it as possible off my bare ankles and my blue jeans.

"Hi," I tentatively said when I got near her. "Your mom told me I might find you here. Is it okay if I stay?"

She didn't say anything but nodded her head ever so slightly. I sat in the swing next to her. Every few minutes I looked over at her, but she never looked at me. She stared straight ahead as if I wasn't there until at last she spoke, and when she did, her words came out in a torrent.

"I can't believe she's my mother! Why didn't she ever tell me she had a daughter? Does my father know?"

I shook my head and by my silence, forced her to look at me.

"Why not? Why didn't she tell him? My G.o.d, I hope he's not my real father. He isn't, is he, Kris? Tell me he didn't give me away, too!"

I shook my head again.

I seemed incapable of finding the words I needed to tell her the horrible truth.

"Then who is my father? Does my mother even know who f.u.c.ked her?"

I winced at the brutality in her words and took a deep breath.

"Your mother was raped, and then she became pregnant," I said quietly, blinking rapidly.

"No!" she screamed, a sound more primal than any I'd ever heard. "No! No! No!"

Each scream felt like someone was kicking me in the stomach.

"No! No! No!" Her emotion seemed to create a fence around the swing set. Just she and I and all the pain were inside the fence. I wanted desperately to be on the other side, but I couldn't move. My eyes were riveted on Destiny as she stood and violently shook her head back and forth. She kept grabbing her hair and letting go of it in slow, exaggerated motions.

I got up and moved toward her to try to calm her, to offer some kind of physical comfort, but she stepped back, as if in a trance.

I didn't know what else to do, what else to offer her, so I gave her what I give best: words.

Between screams, I talked to her. Standing right there in the middle of this children's playground, I rambled on and on. About everything. About nothing I can remember now.

Gradually, and I mean gradually, because it seemed to happen at an agonizingly slow pace, her screams became softer and her body movements grew less violent.

Eventually, she staggered back to the gra.s.sy, snow-covered area and crumpled to the ground. Slowly, cautiously, talking all the while, I approached her. This time, she let me near.

I helped her get up from the ground and steered her to a park bench a few feet from where she'd fallen. I gently sat her down, and then I sank down next to her.

I stopped talking after she let out her last scream and in the silence, I could no longer ignore the pain that was in and around me. We sat there, not talking, our legs barely touching, until without sound, I lowered my head and started to cry.

I cried for Destiny Greaves, and I cried for myself. For in us, I saw the struggle, and I realized it would be there for a lifetime.

"I can't take much more of this, Kris. I truly cannot."

I raised my head and laughed nervously at her extreme understatement.

"I think we're about done, Destiny. Unless you want me to look into your grandparents' lives or something," I mustered up enough energy to make a feeble joke as I used my shirt collar to wipe away my tears.

"Just my luck a" they're probably murderers," she said angrily and then added, "How long have you known about the rape, Kris?"

"Since the day I met Fran Green."

"Why didn't you tell me before now? Did you ever intend to tell me or were you, too, going to be the keeper of the little secret?"

"Of course I was going to tell you," I responded to her anger with some of my own. "You hired me because you wanted distance. I gave you that distance by holding on to your 'little secret,' as you call it, until I thought you were ready for it."

"When, just when, did you think I'd be ready to hear that I am what's left of a rape that happened thirty years ago?"

She had me there.

"I was going to tell you after I met your mother, so I could give you some good news along with the bad news," I said, and as I said it, the plan sounded lame even to me.

"You are some kind of caretaker, Kristin Ashe," she said bitterly, and I knew she meant it as an insult.