A Silence of Mockingbirds Read Online Free Page B

the kids were old enough,
I had actually begun to figure out who I was, in addition to being their
mother. I wasn’t sure I was ready to let go of my newfound independence.
    There was one other looming matter discouraging any elation I felt:
What would Gene and Carol think? This would be their grandchild.
How would they feel about Tim and me raising up this child across
town from them? If they had, as Sarah maintained, sent her away to
have this baby, then surely they wouldn’t like the idea of the child
virtually coming home.
    I suggested to Tim that, if we were going to adopt Sarah’s baby, we
should only do it if Gene and Carol extended their blessings. Tim was
in full agreement.
    Sarah balked. She didn’t see any need to ask her parents’ blessing.
“It’s my baby,” she said. “If I choose you and Tim, why should it matter
whether my parents agree with my decision?”
    The discussion over getting the Brills’ blessing went on for about six
weeks. I told Sarah I wanted her involved in the baby’s life. The adoption
would need to be an open one. This child would always know Sarah in
some intimate way. On that matter, we agreed.
    Sometime early into her third trimester, Sarah told us her father
was okay with us adopting, but her mother was not. Carol did not want
Tim and me raising her grandchild. I never asked Carol why. I’m not
sure I wanted to know. I think it was because the hidden part of me was
relieved.
    Sarah was miffed when she told me her mother wouldn’t give her
consent. She was upset at me and at her mom. She didn’t understand
why it mattered what her mother thought. But now I wonder if Sarah
really ever discussed the matter with her parents. Over the years, I’ve
come to second-guess everything Sarah said.
    I had one confidant in town whom I shared all this with, Janice
Wells, who suggested an alternative couple for Sarah. Janice had friends
in Portland who were possible candidates. Chuck and Missy McDonald
already had a big family, like ours, but they wanted to add to it. Sarah
was initially reluctant but eventually agreed to at least meet with Missy.
    I didn’t know much about the couple, only what Janice told me. But
after several phone calls back and forth between all parties involved,
and with Sarah’s permission, I arranged for us all to meet. Missy drove
up from Portland and I drove over from Pendleton, picking up Sarah
along the way. We gathered in Westport, Washington, where my sister
lives.
    Out over the Pacific, and there in that harbor community, agitated
clouds hung heavy and low. Looking back now, I might regard the
darkening sky as an omen of the trouble sure to follow. But at that time,
it made sense to trust fate to deal with whatever capricious winds were
brewing.
    Chapter Six
    S arah was raped, or so she says now.
    The first time I came across the rape claim I was leafing through a pile of
documents Shawn’s defense attorney gave me. Right there on Sarah’s medical records
was a request that she have an all-female delivery staff because Sarah said
her first pregnancy had been traumatic: the result of rape.
    The next time I read that statement was in a report filed by the
detective who interviewed her parents in the wake of Karly’s death.
    “Sarah was a handful, a major challenge,” Gene Brill told the officer.
“One year we had to send her off to a Christian boarding school in San
Diego because we were afraid she was going to run off somewhere.”
    “Was that the year she got pregnant?” asked Detective Mike Wells.
    “No,” Carol Brill said. “Sarah mimicked her birth mother. She
waited to get pregnant until she was the same age her mother had been
when she was born. Her mother was twenty. Sarah was twenty. She was
trying to make some sort of connection.”
    “And that was a boyfriend? Or a rape she got pregnant from?”
Detective Wells asked.
    “A boyfriend,” Gene replied.
    Detective Wells was confused. Sarah