Page 160 of Buried Too Deep

“I appreciate that.” He put his phone away. If she didn’t know who Ashley was, he’d have to come at this from a different angle. “What did you know twenty-three years ago when you bargained for visitation with me?”

Lisa sighed. “You know your father has a younger sister, right?”

Sage nodded slowly. “Right. Aunt Jenny. There’s another brother, Uncle Walton.”

“You don’t really know either of them.”

“Uncle Walton is never stationed near us, and Aunt Jenny is in a mental hospital.”

“She got pregnant when she was fifteen,” his mother said, as if merely saying the words were painful.

“Oh,” Sage said quietly, a few pieces falling into place. “That wouldn’t have been good for Grandfather.”

“No, it wouldn’t have been. It would have ruined his reputation. His career.”

“His ability to fundraise,” Sage added cynically.

“I hate that you know that. I hate that it’s true.”

“What happened to Aunt Jenny?”

“He sent her away.”

“To the mental health hospital or to a home for unwed mothers?”

Lisa shook her head. “Neither. It was someone’s actual home. Someone who owed him a favor, I guess.”

“What happened?”

His mother suddenly looked twenty years older than she had when he’d arrived. “I found the address. Alan had it written on a scrap of paper in his wallet.”

“You went through his wallet?”

“I sure as hell did. I loved Jenny. She was a sweet girl and needed her family. She’d told me that she was pregnant before she was sent away, and I asked if she knew who the father was. She…shut down. Said it didn’t matter, that she didn’t want the father of her baby in her life.”

“How did Grandfather find out she was pregnant?”

“It wasn’t difficult to figure out. I never said a word to your grandparents because I promised I wouldn’t, and Jenny trusted me. But she was throwing up every morning. Her mother made her take a pregnancy test. The next day, Jenny was sent away.”

“When was this?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Twenty-three years ago.”

Sage thought he’d feel elated to have his suspicions about Ashley Caulfield confirmed, but all he felt was dread. “Did you visit her? At the address you found in the wallet?”

“I did. Jenny was still a child herself. She was miserable, lonely and sad and…traumatized. I asked her point-blank if she’d been raped and she nodded. I was…sick. Just sick.”

“She never told you who’d done it?”

“No, never. I told her that I’d help her get an abortion. She just started to cry. She wanted the baby. Wanted someone who’d love her back, and that broke my damn heart. She was just a child herself and her parents had sent her away, like she was nothing. Just an embarrassment, an obstacle to their success.”

“And then?”

“And then the owner of the house burst into her room and said she’d overheard our conversation. I should have known we wouldn’t have privacy, but I was so taken aback by how distraught Jenny looked. The woman threw me out of her house and by the time I got home, both your father and grandfather were waiting for me. My marriage was over.”

“That’s why Dad divorced you?”

“Yes. He and your grandfather were so angry with me. For visiting Jenny, for offering her an abortion. I wasn’t surprised by Alan’s reaction, but your father’s stunned me. I was just numb after that. That he’d throw me away for trying to help his sister? He didn’t see it that way. Alan especially didn’t see it that way.”

---