Muriel Jensen - His Family

China took several steps away from him and he was able to study her without the suspicion and confusion that usually permeated his thoughts when it had seemed she was his sister. He noted the trim body in the short denim skirt and yellow T-shirt, the cloud of dark hair.

She turned to him, her dark eyes shiny with tears, the soft line of her mouth uncertain. “I’m sure this validates all your suspicions that I’m just a moneygrubbing opportunist.”

He’d once believed that. He couldn’t imagine that Abby would turn up after all this time and relieve the anguish that was at the heart of all their lives.

He’d been only five when she was taken, but he bore as much pain and guilt as everyone in the family did. He remembered clearly that his fourteen-month-old sister had toddled into his room that afternoon, fascinated by the fleet of large yellow trucks that were his pride and joy. He’d occasionally let her play with them, but that particular day he’d been banned from a football game Killian and Sawyer were playing in the backyard with their friends. They’d said he was too small and might be hurt.

Feelings injured, he’d passed on his annoyance to Abby, wresting one of his trucks from her and inadvertently bruising her arm when he yanked it away. His mother had come and carried her out of his room. His last memory of her was of her weeping face over his mother’s shoulder. The image of it had haunted him for years.

He wondered now if that had been partially responsible for his animosity toward China—a sort of transference of guilt.

“No, of course it doesn’t,” he said. “I’d come to the point where I was convinced you knew what you were talking about. The evidence was there.”

Her face crumpled and she turned away, leaning a shoulder against the slender gray trunk of a birch tree. “Instead, it appears you were right. Abbott Mills must have made a million of those rompers.”

Curiously, even after the convincing proof of a scientific test, he still felt connected to her. He walked around the tree and offered her his handkerchief. “There’s still the matter of the newspaper clippings. Why would those have been saved, if they weren’t somehow related to you?”

China had been adopted by a California couple through their doctor, who’d also found them a second child. The girls had been raised together, and when their widowed father died just a few months before, they’d been cleaning out the house for sale and found boxes with their names on them in the attic.

“I don’t understand,” she said, dabbing at her eyes, then her nose. She sniffed and tossed her head back. “I thought I had the truth, but I was wrong. I should go home.”

“You realize you’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“Thank you, but now that we all know I’m not Abigail, there’s little point in my being here. It was all right when we weren’t sure, but now that we are…”

“Who’s going to look after the estate?” he asked, sure his mother would be upset if she left. The entire family had grown attached to China. “I’m supposed to report to work at Flamingo Gables in a week. The family’s getting used to counting on you.”

He saw her draw a breath and straighten away from the tree. She was firming her resolve. “I have my own business in California. My own…my own…life, such as it is.”

She looked suddenly bereft, and he was surprised to find that he couldn’t stand it. He had a way to shake her out of it. “Shopping,” he said. “It’s not as though you provide food or shelter for the needy. You go shopping for the rich. They can do without you for a while.”

She bristled with indignation. “I’ve told you repeatedly that I work for the busy, not the rich, and aiding them to save money on things they require may even help them give to food banks and shelters for the needy!”

“Sure. My point is, you shouldn’t make a decision without thinking it through.”

“I’m going home,” she said firmly, and started back through the trees the way they’d come.

He’d been wondering how to bring up a detail to all this that apparently hadn’t occurred to her. As she hurried away from him, he felt certain it was time to just say it. “What about your sister?” he asked, following her.

“What about her?”

“Have you ever considered that she could be connected to us?”

“What?” She stopped in her tracks, holding back the tensile branch of a vine maple to frown at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Haven’t you thought that…maybe…your box is really hers?”

She appeared shocked by that suggestion, then her eyes lost focus as she thought it over.

“You said your boxes were the same,” he prodded.

“Yes,” she said.

“Exactly the same?”

“Exactly.” She still didn’t seem to see his point. “But my name was on mine, and her name…”

“Yes, but what if somewhere along the line, the lids got switched?” Her eyes widened as she considered that possibility. “And what’s in her box is really yours, and what’s in the box with your name on it is really hers?”

Her brow furrowed as she came to see that as a possibility.

“It could have happened any number of ways,” he went on, subtly reeling her in. “Did you ever move when you were growing up?”

“Twice,” she replied. “Friends of my father’s helped us.”

“Could have happened then. The boxes fell over, and the lids got mixed up. Or maybe one of your parents adding something to the boxes inadvertently did it.”

She stared into his eyes with a sort of horrified awe. “That’s…grasping at straws.”

“Is it?” He held the branch for her when her fingers grew lax and a branch was about to scratch her face. “You were convinced by the old clippings that they must have been intended for you. But since the test proved that wrong, then the other possibility doesn’t seem that far off, does it?” He let that sink in for a minute. “If the clippings weren’t for you, then who else is there?”

CHINA WOULD HAVE liked to push him onto the fragrant grass. Since the day she’d first set eyes on him, he’d stood determinedly in her way. He didn’t believe she was his little sister returned; didn’t believe she wanted no money, just family; blocked at every turn her attempts to be friends with him. Even now, when all she wanted to do was leave, he put up another roadblock.

She didn’t want to stay another minute, was embarrassed and disappointed that she’d turned everyone’s life upside down quite needlessly, as it turned out. But what if he was right? What if, somehow, the lids of the boxes had gotten mixed up and her adopted sister, Janet, was their flesh-and-blood sister?

She met Campbell Abbott’s dark gaze. He stood there like the locked gate he’d been since she’d arrived—an inch or two shorter than his brothers, but broader in the shoulders, and more inclined to seriousness than they were. He’d prevented her from ever feeling completely welcome, and now he wanted to prevent her from leaving!

She turned away, headed for the parking lot. “I’ll call her and tell her to get in touch with you,” she shouted back at him.

He caught her arm at the edge of the parking lot and turned her to him. “You can’t do that,” he said with surprising gentleness. “You can’t just take off on Mom. We all have to talk this out. Come to a solution. And if your sister is our sister, you can’t expect to be able to stay out of it.”

She could expect to, but of course it wouldn’t happen.

Janet was prettier, smarter, loved by everyone for her unfailing good humor and quick wit. China had never resented her for it, only envied her. China was basically shy, but inclined to speak her mind if the situation warranted. The courage she’d required to present herself to the Abbotts as possibly their daughter/sister returned had been huge.