Family Tree Part 6

"She's still messed up from the birth in that one."

"Which gives it an immediacy," Dana coaxed. "But you can take more now."

"She's sleeping now."

Dana thought Lizzie's features were as striking in sleep as when she was awake. "Oh, Hugh. I don't want to wait. The envelopes are all addressed and stamped. There are so many people we want to tell."

"Most of them will know anyway," he said with sudden sharpness. "In fact, I'm not sure why we're even sending announcements."

Startled, Dana said, "But you were after me for weeks to make an appointment with the stationer. You insisted on coming. You chose the photo announcement and insisted you could get a good shot to use."

He didn't move, stayed close, yet she felt a chill seeping in. A moment later, he rose, put his camera away, and gently set the baby in the crib.

"Hugh?"

When his eyes finally met hers, they were troubled. "I'm not sure we should include a picture with the announcement."

Dana sank into her pillow. "You don't want people to see her. But they will eventually. We can't keep her in the house under wraps."

"I know. But sending a picture out now is only going to provoke questions." He took a quick breath. "Do we need to put ourselves on display? Word'll spread about the baby anyway. People love to talk."

"So?"

"So do we have to fuel the gossip? It'd be one thing if I could say that my wife's grandfather was black."

"Why does it matter?" Dana cried. She didn't care if her grandfather was black. She didn't care if her father was black. It wouldn't change who she was.

Unfortunately, Hugh cared. "We need to locate your father."

Dana was immediately defensive. "I suggested doing it before I was ever pregnant, and you said it didn't matter. I said what if there was a medical problem, and you said you didn't want to know and that if something arose we'd deal with it."

"That's exactly what we're doing. Dealing with it means tracking down your dad now. My man can do that."

His man was Lakey McElroy. A computer nerd from a family of Irish cops, Lakey was socially inept, but very smart. Where his brothers knew the streets, he knew the hidden alleys. He also knew his way around the Web. On more than one occasion, he had found information that Hugh had given up on. If anyone could find Dana's father, Lakey could.

Dana felt the old ambivalence-wanting to know, not wanting to know. Perhaps Hugh was right to insist. This wasn't only about her anymore. It was about Lizzie, too.

"We don't have much to go on," she reminded him.

"We have a name, and a picture. We have a place, a month, and a year."

"Roughly," she cautioned, because she had thought about this far more than he had. "My mother never said exactly when they were together, so it's fine to count backward from the day I was born, but if she delivered me early or late, we could be wrong."

"You never asked?"

"I was five when she died."

"Ellie Jo must know."

"She says no."

"What about your mom's friends? Wouldn't she have confided in them?"

"I've asked before. I could ask again."

"Sooner rather than later, please."

It was the please that bothered her-like this was a business matter, and she had let him down. She told herself it was only the Clarke seeping out through a crack in his otherwise human veneer, but tears filled her eyes. "I can't do it now," she said. "I just had a baby."

"I'm not saying now." His cell phone vibrated. He looked at the ID panel. "Let me take this. It may help."

Genevieve Falk was a geneticist whom Hugh had found years before when he needed a DNA expert for a case. She was intelligent and down-to-earth.

Now, standing at the window with the phone to his ear, he said a grateful, "Genevieve. Thanks for calling back."

"We're on Nantucket, but you said it was urgent."

"I need your help. Here's the scenario. A very white couple gives birth to a baby that has the skin and hair of an African American. Neither parents nor grandparents have remotely brown skin or curly hair. The a.s.sumption is that there's an African-American connection further back-mabe a great-grandparent. Is this possible?"

"Great-grandparent, singular? On only one side of the baby's family? That's not as probable as if there were such a relative on both sides."

"There isn't. The baby's father's family is thoroughly doc.u.mented."

"Was the mother adopted?"

"No, but her father is an unknown quant.i.ty. In the one picture we have, he looks very blond."

"Looks don't count, Hugh. Miscegenation has created generations of people with mixed blood. Some say that only ten percent of all African Americans today are genetically pure. If the other ninety percent have genetic material that is even partly white, and that material is further diluted with each level of procreation, not only would their features be white, but suddenly producing a child with African traits would be improbable."

"I don't need to know what's probable, only what's possible," he said. "Is it possible for racial traits to lie dormant for several generations before reappearing? Can a light-skinned, blond-haired woman produce a child with non-Caucasian features?"

Genevieve sounded doubtful. "She can, but the odds are slim, especially if those several generations before were filled with blond-haired ancestors."

Hugh tried again. "If, say, the baby's grandfather was one-quarter black but pa.s.sing for white, and the baby's mother had no African-American features at all, could the baby inherit dark skin and tight curly hair?"

"It would be rare."

"What are the odds?"

"I can't tell you, any more than we know the odds of a redhead appearing after several generations without."

"Okay. Then at what point would it become impossible?"

"'Impossible' is not a word I like to use. Genetic flukes happen. Suffice it to say that the further back you have to look, the less probable your scenario becomes. Does the mom know of no black relatives?"

"None."

"Then I'd suspect hanky-panky," Genevieve concluded bluntly. "Someone had an affair, and clearly it wasn't the dad. Have your client do a DNA test to prove paternity. That would be the first and easiest line of attack. By the way, how's your wife? Isn't she due soon?"

Dana listened to Hugh's half of the conversation with her eyes closed. She opened them the instant he ended the call. He looked so grim that her stomach began knotting. "Is it not possible?"

"It is if your father has a healthy dose of African-American blood. The smaller that dose is, the more remote the chances."

"But it is possible," Dana repeated. "It has to be. I refuse to believe that if my father was first- or second-generation racially mixed, my mother wouldn't have known. According to Gram Ellie, she truly didn't know. Unless she was hiding it from everyone."

Hugh stretched his neck, first to one side, then the other. "What Genevieve suggested," he said, "and this is a quote, is hanky-panky."

"Like the wife had an affair? Well, of course she suggested that. She's used to working with you when you're representing a client, and your clients aren't saints. She would never have suggested it if she'd known you were talking about us. Why didn't you tell her?"

"Because it's none of her business," he said. "And because I wanted an objective opinion."

"If you'd told her it was us, she might have been able to give an informed opinion."

He made a sputtering sound. "They just don't know the odds." Turning back to the window, he muttered, "I half wish you'd had an affair. At least, then, there'd be an explanation."

"So do I," Dana lashed back. "I'd like an explanation for why my mother died when I was five, or why my father never wanted to know about me, or why Gram Ellie's Earl, who was the kindest, most loving person on earth, didn't live to see me get married, but some of us don't get explanations. Most of us aren't privileged like you, Hugh."

"It's just that this is all so bizarre. It'd be nice to have something concrete."

"Well, we don't."

He shot her a glance. "We will. If you talk to anyone who might have information on your father, even the slightest idea of where he was from, I'll get Lakey on it. Will you ask? This is important, Dana. It isn't idle curiosity. Promise me you will?"

Dana felt a stab of resentment. "I'm not blind. I see how important this is to you."

"It should be just as important to you," he shot back. "We wouldn't be in this situation if you'd tracked your father down when you were young."

"And if I had found him and learned he was even the slightest bit black, would you have married me? Is there a racial limit to your love?"

"No. There is not. I love this child."

"Love is a word, Hugh. But do you feel it? I need to know, both for Lizzie and for me."

"I can't believe you're asking me this."

"I can't believe it either," Dana said. She could see him closing up before her eyes. Suddenly, he was a Clarke to the core.

"You're tired," he said coolly and headed for the door. "So am I."

She might have called him back, might have apologized, might have begged. Her sense of loss was larger than ever.

Desperate to blunt it, she took her knitting from the bedside table and sank her fingers into the wool-a blend of alpaca and silk, actually. It was a deep teal color with a thread of turquoise, just enough to lend movement without muting the cables, popcorns, and vines she would incorporate into the piece.

She began working st.i.tches from one needle to the next, doing row after row, cables and all, with the kind of steadiness that had kept her afloat for longer than she could recall. She couldn't have said what size needle she was using, whether it was time for a popcorn, or if she was achieving the desired drape. She simply inserted the needle into a st.i.tch, wrapped yarn around it, and pulled it through, again and again and again.

She needed to sleep, but she needed this more. Knitting restored her balance. She wished she was home, but not in the house overlooking the ocean. She wanted to take her baby to the one overlooking the orchard. It was at the end of a tree-lined lane, a stone path away from the yarn shop. Cradling Lizzie, she would sit with her feet up on the wicker lounger on Ellie Jo's back porch, drinking fresh-squeezed limeade, eating warm-from-the-oven brownies, patting Veronica, Ellie Jo's cat. Then she would take the baby down that short stone path-and, oh, the need was intense. Dana was desperate to sit at the long wood table with its bowl of apples in the middle. She longed to hear the whirr of the ceiling fan, the rhythmic tap-tap of needles, the soft conversation of friends.

If she had any history at all-any place where she was loved unconditionally-that was it.

Chapter 6.

The arrival of new yarn at The St.i.tchery was always an event. New colors from Manos, textures from Filatura di Crosa, blends from Debbie Bliss and Berroco-once a box was open, word spread through the knitting community with astonishing speed, bringing the mildly curious, the seriously interested, the addicted. In the days following shipments, particularly as a new season approached, Ellie Jo knew to expect an increase in visitors. She also knew who would like what, who would buy what, and who would admire a new arrival but buy an older favorite.

Ellie Jo was as eager for new yarn as any of her customers. Rarely did she put skeins in a bin without holding one out. Her excuse, a perfectly legitimate one, was the need to swatch a sample to tack to the bin, so that customers could see how the yarn would look knit up. What that did, of course, was to let Ellie Jo sample the yarn, herself. If she liked the feel of it as she knit and the way it came out, she ordered skeins for herself.

Today, as she returned from visiting Dana and the baby, she wanted to stop at her house first. But the UPS truck was parking in front of The St.i.tchery, and, with the store still ten minutes shy of opening, someone had to let the man in.

So she stopped beside him in the small pebbled lot, unlocked the door, and showed him where to put the boxes. He had barely left when her manager, Olivia McGinn, arrived wanting to know all about Dana, again distracting Ellie Jo from her ch.o.r.es at the house. Other customers arrived, and the shop was abuzz.

There was excited talk about the baby, excited talk about Dana, excited talk about the boxes. Ellie Jo wasn't sure she would have been able to concentrate enough to actually sell yarn. Fortunately, Olivia could do that. Indeed, at that very moment, she was waiting on a mother and her twentysomething daughter who were just learning to knit and wanted novelty yarns for fall scarves.

Customers like these were good for sales; novelty yarn was expensive and quickly worked, which meant that if the customer enjoyed herself, she would soon be back for more. One scarf could lead to a hat, then a throw, then a sweater. If that sweater was cashmere at upwards of forty dollars a skein, with eight or more skeins needed, depending on size and style, the sale could be hefty. Moreover, a year from now, this mother or her daughter might be one of those to rush to the shop when there was word new yarns had arrived.

That was how business worked. Ellie Jo had learned through trial and error, after her initial resistance to selling these same pricey items. Natural fibers remained her favorites, but if novelty yarns brought in trend-seekers who subsidized the shop's more organic tastes, who was she to complain? In recent years, she had developed the utmost respect for innovation.

That was why, putting off her return to the house a bit longer, she took a box-cutter and opened the first of the new boxes. This was no novelty yarn. A blend of cashmere and wool, the skeins included the golds, oranges, deep rusts, and dark browns that would be big for fall. The line was a new one for The St.i.tchery, but from Ellie Jo's first view of it at the knitting show in April, she had known it would sell.

The front door dinged yet again, and Gillian Kline excitedly called her name. Gillian taught English at the nearby community college, an occupation whose hours were flexible enough to allow for frequent visits to the shop. She was fifty-six, of modest height and a weight that had her forever dieting, but her most marked feature was a head of red waves that had neither faded in color nor thinned with age.

Now, with that hair caught up in a fuchsia clasp that only Gillian would dare wear, and a bouquet of pink roses in her hand, she went straight to Ellie Jo and gave her a long hug. Gillian had been one of Elizabeth's closest friends, and in the years since her death had been a surrogate daughter. Neither gave voice to the fact that Elizabeth should have been here to welcome her granddaughter.

"For you, Great-Gram Ellie," said Gillian. "Your Lizzie is perfect."

Ellie Jo lit up. "You've seen her?" She took the flowers, which were taken from her seconds later and put in water.

"Just now," Gillian said and rummaged in the satchel that hung from her shoulder. "Hours old, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world." In no time, she had a picture of Dana and the baby on the monitor of her digital camera, for the other women to admire.

Ellie Jo was relieved. Dana looked tired but happy and totally comfortable holding the baby. It was hard to see if Lizzie looked any different from expected; Dana was so washed out that, by comparison, any child would look dark-not that the coloring bothered Ellie Jo one whit. She just wasn't up for questions.

"She's so sweet!" cried one.

"She has Hugh's mouth," decided another.

"Zoom it in," ordered a third, and Gillian complied.

Juliette Irving, a friend of Dana's and herself a young mother, with year-old twins asleep in a stroller by the door, remarked, "Look at her! Is that Dana's nose? When will they be home?"

"Tomorrow," Gillian said.

"Elizabeth Ames Clarke," announced Nancy Russell, clearly touched by the name. A florist whose latest pa.s.sion was knitting flowers, felting them, and sewing them on shawls, sweaters, and purses, she was a contemporary of Gillian's, another childhood friend of the first Elizabeth.

"It's a long one," Gillian warned. "Can we do it overnight?"