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I sipped, needing a task more than I needed refreshment. The lemonade blended sweet and tart. “I’m sorry to drop in on you like this.” Instead of reaching for one of my cookies, she opened the recipe box. Her thickly veined, bent fingers trembled a little when she fingered the first card.

I traced the rim of my glass as I watched her thumb through the cards. Carefully, I picked up one of her warm cookies. “When we found the recipe box, we couldn’t resist baking some of Jenna’s recipes. These cookies are Jenna’s maple cookies.”

“Jenna always had a knack for baking.” Her head cocked as she removed a card and studied it. “I haven’t seen her handwriting in so long.”

“We had a mini grand reopening yesterday and sold cookies like this. We sold out in an hour.”

Kate nodded. “That would have made Jenna happy. She liked to watch people eat what she baked.”

I searched the old woman’s face for similarities to the pictures I had of Jenna. There seemed little resemblance except for the eyes. They were Jenna’s eyes.

“The cookie recipe was our mother’s. We grew up making these cookies every Saturday to have with Sunday dinner. Like I said, I’ve not baked them in years, but today I had a hankering for the sweet taste. I made them by memory and wasn’t sure if I’d get them right.”

I took a bite. “They’re perfect.”

She smiled and nodded. “How did you say you found this?”

“We were taking out a wall in the bakery, and I found this wedged between the beams.” I reached into my purse and pulled out the photos I had found. Gently, I slid them toward her. “I found these pictures of Jenna.”

Kate picked up the picture of Jenna, Walter, and Joey standing arm in arm, smiling, in front of the bakery. “She was so full of energy and life. She was two years older than me, and I followed her around everywhere. I cried fiercely when she left for the city.”

“Why did she leave?”

“She wanted to see the city. It was the fall of 1943. Daddy wanted her to get married, but she’d have none of it.

They fought something fierce. But he couldn’t sway her.

She was supposed to be gone six months. Daddy wouldn’t speak her name after she left, but I know he missed her.

We all figured she’d come back within the year. ”

By the fall of 1944 Jenna would have been noticeably pregnant. “She didn’t come home, did she?”

“No. I wrote her in October of 1944 and told her I was getting married at Christmas. She wrote me back right away and told me about her young man.”

After nearly seventy years, Kate still protected Jenna. “Did she tell you about the baby?”

Tears welled in Kate’s eyes. “She did. Said she’d met Walter, and she’d received word he’d died in the Pacific.

He wanted to marry her but never got the chance.

She was afraid and alone.” She traced the line of Jenna’s young and smiling face with gnarled fingers.

I had the sense she’d cut through the years and had landed in the past. “I told Mama. She shook her head as if she’d known all along Jenna was in trouble.

She told me not to tell Daddy. Said Jenna needed time to find a husband or a home for a baby he’d not want. ”

A baby he didn’t want. My throat tightened, and for a moment I couldn’t speak.

Gordon cleared his throat. “What did your mother do?”

Kate swiped a tear from her lined cheek.

“I told Mama she had to tell him, and finally she did. He was furious. Said he didn’t want to talk about Jenna ever again because she’d disgraced her family.

Mama wasn’t one to argue with Daddy, but she did that night.

Said she’d send him to the barn to live before she turned her back on her girl.

” A faint smile tugged at the edge of Kate’s mouth.

“I told my Billy what was happening and that I wanted to take the baby. No one needed to know where it came from. We could make up a story that hid the truth. And he agreed.” Tears again filled her eyes. “Lord, but I loved that man.”

The image of Jenna’s headstone darkened my thoughts. “Did you and your mother go to Alexandria?”

“No. It was my Billy that went with me. We arrived after the New Year in January. Went to the bakery, and they sent us to the hospital. Jenna had died a week earlier. And there was the baby laying in his crib, crying and sucking on his hand, so hungry for his mama. Billy and I buried Jenna there in Alexandria. She’d told me she’d never leave the city until her Walter came back from the war, and seeing as he never came back, it seemed she should stay.

We wrapped the baby in blankets and left the day she was buried. ”

“There was a small mention of Jenna on the death notices page. The piece described Jenna’s baby as ailing.”

Kate nodded. “He was sickly. Could barely stomach any milk. Billy and I didn’t have any idea what we were supposed to do.

We were so young and didn’t know the first thing about being married, let alone being parents.

Baby cried all the way home. We were at Billy’s parents’ place, spinning our tale of how we’d come to find the baby, the orphan of a married couple who’d passed.

Billy’s parents and grandmother were listening.

Grandmother was old and bent and gray haired.

Like me now. I thought she was ancient, and I didn’t think she could help that baby.

But she sent my father-in-law out to the barn and told him to fetch some goat’s milk.

He did, and she put it right in our one baby bottle.

The boy suckled hard because he was so hungry.

Minute he took his first taste, he settled right into Grandma Simmons’s arms and ate his fill.

After that day, he got stronger and stronger. ”

“So, the baby survived?”

“That he did. Grew into a fine man. A fine son. Turned out he was the only child the Lord gave Billy and me, but we couldn’t have asked for better.”

“Where is he now?”

“Out in the fields. Walt oversees the orchards.”

“Walt. Walter. Who chose that name?”

“Jenna. She named him in the hospital before she died. It didn’t seem right to change it.”

“She named him after his father, Walter.”

“Yes.”

From my purse, I pulled out the Bible Joey had given me, as well as the letters. “These belonged to Walter. He had a friend who kept his Bible all these years.”

Kate’s hand hovered over the Bible, but she didn’t touch it. “I always knew I’d never carried Walter inside me, but it wasn’t more than a minute or two he was in my care that he was mine. Seeing all this now reminds me that I wasn’t his mother.”

“Sounds like what you did for him is what any real mother would do. Don’t ever doubt that.” Terry had brought me into the world, but Sheila McCrae was my mother.

Tears glistened. “Thank you for saying that.”

For a moment we sat in silence as she opened the Bible and studied the family tree scribbled on the first page.

I scooted to the edge of my seat. “You said Walt’s in the fields?”

She didn’t look up, and her voice sounded faraway. “Won’t be home until dinner. I inherited my family land, and Billy got his family’s land. Our son, Walt, manages both lands.”

Our son. She said it with such pride and love.

A part of me envied her. Her husband had taken in her sister’s child and loved him as his own.

It was a wish I had for my child and Gordon.

But then Kate and Billy had both been Walt’s adoptive parents.

They’d been on equal footing. Gordon and I weren’t on a level playing field when it came to my baby.

“I’d like to meet him,” I said. “Would that be possible?”

Kate shook her head and glanced away from the Bible. “I’d like to have a word with my boy alone first. There’s a lot Billy and I didn’t tell him over the years. A lot.”

Secrets. Did Walt know about Jenna? A shot of anger rose in me as I sat there. I nodded toward the oven. “The cookies still in the oven smell done.”

“I suppose they do.” Kate rose, her hands trembling a bit more. She grabbed a dish towel, opened the oven, and pulled out the cookies that had been on the verge of burning. “I’ll see you to the door.”

I wanted to meet Walt. I wanted to personally give him the Bible and tell him about all I’d found. I wanted to push. But I didn’t. This was their family matter. And no matter what I wanted or what Jenna wanted, this was between Kate and her son.

I rose and laid my business card on the table. “He can find me here if he wants to know more.”

She didn’t look at the card as she tucked it into her apron. “I’ll tell him.”

Gordon placed his hand on the small of my back as if to say Let’s go . And so we left. I settled in the front seat of his truck, my chilled bones soaking in the warmth from the leather seats.

Out of the house and away from Kate and the Bible, a rush of doubts chased after me. I shook my head. “What if she doesn’t tell him?”

He started the engine and put on his sunglasses. “I think she will.”

Fear niggled at me. Trust would never come easy to me. “She doesn’t want to share him.”

“Daisy, she’ll tell him.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“I’ve an image of her throwing all of Walter’s belongings in the trash.”

He shook his head. “It’s clear she loves her son. She wouldn’t hurt him like that.”

“She wouldn’t be the first adoptive parent to lie to her child.”

“Your parents never lied to you.”

“I know.” But that didn’t calm the fears. “What if he doesn’t know he’s adopted? What if the family kept his truth from him?”

He dropped his voice a notch. “You’re borrowing trouble, Daisy.”

My head dropped back against the warm leather seat. “That’s because I don’t have enough trouble in my own life.”

He grinned as the truck rumbled along the driveway, a cloud of dust kicking up behind the back tires. “Give her time, Daisy. She’s old. This was one hell of a shock.”

I closed my eyes. “I feel like I’ve failed Jenna.”