Half Past: A Novel by Victoria Helen Stone

Author:Victoria Helen Stone [Stone, Victoria Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781477819791
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2017-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

She was going to have to call her ex. Not for emotional support, but for actual, concrete information. Jeff was a professor of American history, and the 1960s was history, wasn’t it?

Granted, his area of specialty was the industrial revolution and nineteenth-century trade, but he covered classes right up through the modern age. And loved it all, really.

But even if he had little knowledge of 1960s California, he’d know where to get it. If he still cared enough about her to help.

That was a damn big if.

Her stomach tightened and rolled at the idea of reaching out. She was trying to move on, and she hated looking back. The past was so much easier to deal with when it was getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

She didn’t want to reach back, did she? Or was she actually using her grandfather as an excuse to bring Jeff closer again? No. She needed him gone. She wanted him gone. Probably.

“Shit,” she groaned, glancing at the clock. It was already ten fifteen in Chicago, and she couldn’t call from here anyway. She’d try tomorrow when she got to civilization. But now that she’d decided to do it, she couldn’t just lounge around and live with it. She needed to take action. It was her way of coping with life. Better to make a mistake than spend days rehashing the same questions and doubts.

Hannah opened an email window and typed in his personal address. In the subject line, she wrote a simple “Hi.”

“Shit,” she groaned again. But then she dove right in. I’m sorry to bother you. I know things are . . . complicated. But I don’t know who else to ask.

She typed, “I’m sorry,” again, then deleted it with a grimace of disgust. She’d opened with her sorriness, and she wasn’t going to pepper it throughout the note.

She was sorry, though. For a million things. For everything.

Flexing her fingers, she stared at the screen.

She ran from problems. That was her standard MO. Maybe because early in life she’d convinced herself that leaving Coswell, Iowa, behind would be her key to happiness. That if she could just get far enough away, she’d find the right place. She’d transferred that belief to relationships too. So she ran, and that meant she had to live with regrets instead of facing consequences.

A fair trade. So Hannah ignored her guilt and sorrow and typed up the facts instead.

She didn’t reveal all of the truth. Just some of it. The part about her father, but not her mother. She wrote:

But the story feels all wrong. I don’t understand why my dad would have lied about his own father. And I don’t understand some of the things I’m hearing. But I’m running into a dead end online. Do you have any suggestions for finding more information about this man? If you’re willing to help . . .

She added a link to the photo she’d found, hoping he wouldn’t be able to resist looking into this mystery whether he wanted to or not.

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