Lena looked at her.
“You knew.”
Evelyn nodded once.
The movement was almost invisible.
Lena felt the floor change beneath her though nothing physically moved.
She sat because her knees had forgotten what they were for.
Dawson immediately moved a chair closer but did not touch her.
She appreciated that without having room in her mind to acknowledge it.
Eliza whispered:
“I don’t understand.”
Harold looked at the broken teapot.
“Ruth was my older sister.”
“She married a man named Samuel Vale.”
Dawson’s eyes sharpened.
“Vale?”
Harold looked at him.
“You know the name.”
“Everyone with land north of the Gallatin knows that name.”
Lena looked at Dawson.
“What?”
He looked reluctant to speak before Harold finished.
“The Vale family owned North Star Ranch.”
Lena knew North Star.
Everyone did.
Or what remained of it.
Three thousand acres of river meadow and high grazing country had been absorbed into Hail holdings long before Lena was old enough to remember.
The land included the most reliable spring in the southern valley.
Harold had always spoken of it as land he saved from foreclosure.
Lena looked back at him.
“My parents owned North Star?”
Harold said:
“Your father did.”
“Where are they?”
Nobody answered.
Lena already knew.
If Ruth and Samuel were alive, she would know them.
“Dead.”
Harold nodded.
“How?”
“Wagon accident.”
“When?”
“You were eleven months old.”
Evelyn sank into a chair.
Lena could hear Eliza crying now.
Quietly.
Not for herself anymore.
Lena asked:
“What happened to me?”
Harold rubbed one hand over his face.
“Ruth had named me guardian in case anything happened.”
“You took me.”
“Yes.”
“And raised me as your daughter.”
“Yes.”
Lena almost laughed.
The sound that came out was hollow.
“No.”
Harold frowned.
“What?”
“You raised me in your house.”
“That is not the same thing.”
Evelyn began crying harder.
“Lena, please.”
Lena turned.
“Did you love me?”
The question destroyed Evelyn.
She folded forward in the chair.
“Oh, God.”
Lena stared.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
The answer came through tears.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Evelyn looked at Harold.
That was enough.
Lena turned toward him.
“Why?”
Harold’s face hardened defensively.
“It was complicated.”
Dawson spoke.
“That phrase usually means somebody benefited.”
Harold glared.
“This is family business.”
Dawson looked at Lena.
“If she asks me to leave, I will.”
Lena’s throat tightened.
She should ask him to leave.
This was humiliating.
Private.