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Authors: Jeanette Windle
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the farm and Mom and Dad too, but I could remember the other foster homes and the orphanage, and I guess I was always waiting for the ax to fall and us to end up alone again.”
With an embarrassed laugh, she added, “I guess a psychologist would say that’s why I drifted into working with abandoned children while Holly ended up in the tree-hugger camp. She was always more of an idealist and thought she could save the world, but I always knew better. In fact, Jeff sounds a lot like her.”
“And you never tried to find out more about your birth family when you grew up? Your adoptive family never told you about them?”
Vicki shrugged. How could she explain the unease that always gripped her every time she tried to push back the dark veil of her early childhood? “The Andrews told us what the foster system had on record. Namely, that our parents hadn’t abandoned us, which mattered most. But family records are sealed with adoption, so all they knew was that our parents had been killed when we were very young. Guatemala hardly seemed relevant, especially since Holly’s birth certificate stated she was American born, and it wasn’t as though we were immigrants from there. We were both registered as American citizens by birth, so Mom and Dad Andrews figured my birth parents must have been traveling down here when I was born.
“I’m not sure why I never told Holly about except that—well, she was happy and settled there. She was fifteen when I went to college and didn’t remember another life. Besides, Holly gets so excited about things—a born crusader. Getting her worked up over some irrelevant piece of our past didn’t seem like a good idea. The past was the past.”
Again that feeling of queasy unease.
“And Mom and Dad Andrews weren’t young. They died just a few months apart when Holly was a freshman in college, so if there was anything else they knew, it went with them. Holly and I were grieving enough over losing the only parents we’d ever known. What good would it do to stir up more past hurt or loss? After all, if we’d had any family, we wouldn’t have ended up in the foster care system, so what was the point? I never expected that either of us would be in Guatemala. Much less that I’d run into you. Who would have believed such a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Evelyn said soberly. “Not in God’s economy.” Then fixing Vicki with a steady gaze, she asked, as she’d asked earlier, “And now?”
“Now?” Vicki ran a tired hand over her face. “It doesn’t sound like we’ll ever be able to find out how our birth parents were killed, but I’ll definitely have to tell Holly about them. That is, if I can ever get her to pick up her phone.”
A sigh escaped Vicki as she fiddled with the Redial on her cell phone. Catching Evelyn’s questioning glance, she added a rueful explanation, “Holly’s not too happy with me. I’m afraid I didn’t take her latest crusade as seriously as I should have.”
“She’ll call when she’s had time to cool down,” Evelyn said quietly. “That’s what sisters do. As to just how your parents were killed . . .” She hesitated. “There is at least one person who knows what happened that day, however locked away that knowledge might be.”
“Really?” Vicki sat up straight. “Who would that be?”
“You."
Chapter Six
Vicki glanced at the dark heads bent studiously over open notebooks before completing the final spelling word she was writing on a portable blackboard. Wiping her sleeve across the dust and sweat of her face, she signaled to Consuelo, her assistant, and ducked out of the thatched shelter to cross a dirt courtyard to the cook shack at the back.
The large A-frame thatched shelter, the narrow wooden benches with their wriggling occupants, and the open courtyard with its low, adobe wall was another of Casa de Esperanza’s neighborhood
With an embarrassed laugh, she added, “I guess a psychologist would say that’s why I drifted into working with abandoned children while Holly ended up in the tree-hugger camp. She was always more of an idealist and thought she could save the world, but I always knew better. In fact, Jeff sounds a lot like her.”
“And you never tried to find out more about your birth family when you grew up? Your adoptive family never told you about them?”
Vicki shrugged. How could she explain the unease that always gripped her every time she tried to push back the dark veil of her early childhood? “The Andrews told us what the foster system had on record. Namely, that our parents hadn’t abandoned us, which mattered most. But family records are sealed with adoption, so all they knew was that our parents had been killed when we were very young. Guatemala hardly seemed relevant, especially since Holly’s birth certificate stated she was American born, and it wasn’t as though we were immigrants from there. We were both registered as American citizens by birth, so Mom and Dad Andrews figured my birth parents must have been traveling down here when I was born.
“I’m not sure why I never told Holly about except that—well, she was happy and settled there. She was fifteen when I went to college and didn’t remember another life. Besides, Holly gets so excited about things—a born crusader. Getting her worked up over some irrelevant piece of our past didn’t seem like a good idea. The past was the past.”
Again that feeling of queasy unease.
“And Mom and Dad Andrews weren’t young. They died just a few months apart when Holly was a freshman in college, so if there was anything else they knew, it went with them. Holly and I were grieving enough over losing the only parents we’d ever known. What good would it do to stir up more past hurt or loss? After all, if we’d had any family, we wouldn’t have ended up in the foster care system, so what was the point? I never expected that either of us would be in Guatemala. Much less that I’d run into you. Who would have believed such a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Evelyn said soberly. “Not in God’s economy.” Then fixing Vicki with a steady gaze, she asked, as she’d asked earlier, “And now?”
“Now?” Vicki ran a tired hand over her face. “It doesn’t sound like we’ll ever be able to find out how our birth parents were killed, but I’ll definitely have to tell Holly about them. That is, if I can ever get her to pick up her phone.”
A sigh escaped Vicki as she fiddled with the Redial on her cell phone. Catching Evelyn’s questioning glance, she added a rueful explanation, “Holly’s not too happy with me. I’m afraid I didn’t take her latest crusade as seriously as I should have.”
“She’ll call when she’s had time to cool down,” Evelyn said quietly. “That’s what sisters do. As to just how your parents were killed . . .” She hesitated. “There is at least one person who knows what happened that day, however locked away that knowledge might be.”
“Really?” Vicki sat up straight. “Who would that be?”
“You."
Chapter Six
Vicki glanced at the dark heads bent studiously over open notebooks before completing the final spelling word she was writing on a portable blackboard. Wiping her sleeve across the dust and sweat of her face, she signaled to Consuelo, her assistant, and ducked out of the thatched shelter to cross a dirt courtyard to the cook shack at the back.
The large A-frame thatched shelter, the narrow wooden benches with their wriggling occupants, and the open courtyard with its low, adobe wall was another of Casa de Esperanza’s neighborhood