“I don’t believe it!” Helen said furiously. “A woman your age cannot be so hopelessly naïve! After that speech, I could swear you’re still carrying a torch for Mitch Yeager. Good God, Lillian! Have you forgotten what he’s done?”
“No,” Lillian said quietly. “How can you possibly ask such a thing?”
“I can ask it when you do things on impulse, things that will only hurt Max. You haven’t solved a problem, Lily-you’ve only created new ones, as well you know. Or is this your own-” She stopped herself, with a visible effort, from finishing that sentence. “You really don’t care about what this will do to Max or anyone else, do you, Lily?”
“He’s all I care about in this, Helen.”
“Helen,” I said, “what aren’t you telling me?”
That silenced them both.
“I know you both adore Max,” I said. “And you know I would never want any harm to come to him, either. I’m trying to figure out what’s really going on here. There are only two possible outcomes for these tests. One is that Max is Lillian’s grandson.”
“I feel sure he is Katy’s son, don’t you, Helen? He is so much like her.”
“Don’t play games with me, Lillian! You’ve put him in danger!”
“I can’t help but think she’s right, Lillian,” I said, “although if we alert the police, they may be able to help us. Because if he is your grandson, Mitch Yeager’s ties to the events of that night in 1958 will be difficult for him to refute.”
“You go right ahead and tell Frank.”
“But, Lillian, you have to face the fact that there is a possibility that the tests will prove he is not your grandson, which-”
“Which will again leave him with no idea who he is,” Helen said. “And no real possibility of ever finding out the truth. Don’t you remember what he went through when all this began? How confused and unsure he was? He’ll feel he came by all his wealth and advantages dishonestly, that he has robbed the estate of some poor murdered infant who will never be found. Oh, Lily, why didn’t you tell Gisella Ross’s parents to stow the Mayflower Compact where the sun don’t shine, right alongside the blue book and all the other trappings of their stupid snobbery?”
“You might as well ask me why I didn’t assassinate Watson and Crick when I saw what their DNA discoveries might lead to,” Lillian said. “Don’t you see, Helen? You’re the one who’s being naïve. Max has never felt sure of his identity. Never. From the moment I learned that DNA was being used to determine paternity, I knew that sooner or later he would want to have DNA tests done. He has, in fact, asked many times before. He cares for my wishes, and without this added pressure from Gisella’s family, perhaps I would have been able to go to my grave without having to face what I’m facing now. But the Rosses’ request is only an excuse that he was all too happy to grab hold of.” She sighed dramatically. “I understand they can test hair from a hairbrush. I feared it was only a matter of time before I’d discover Max combing through my brushes.”
Both women fell silent again. Helen stood and said, “Irene, please take me home.”
“So you see it my way now?” Lillian asked.
“Oh no, Lillian.”
Lillian suddenly went white. “You wouldn’t say anything about- Helen, I’ve made the right choice. You’ll see I’m right.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Lily, but I can hardly believe you’ve considered all the implications. I think you’re wrong about why Mitch hasn’t harmed Max.”
“What do you mean? What do you mean by that?”
“You tell me Mitch is intelligent. And you tell me you think you’re the reason Mitch hasn’t harmed Max.” Her hands clenched and unclenched. “I’ve never told you this, Lillian, but there was a reason Katy asked Jack to come to her birthday party that night, and it wasn’t just to spite you.”
“Helen, there’s no need to go into this now, is there?”
“She was upset about something and she tried to talk to him, but Jack said you and Todd made sure she was never alone with him for more than a minute. So she used one of those minutes to slip him a note. Conn found it in the pocket of Jack’s overcoat. It probably should have ended up with the police, but both Jack and Conn knew what it might do to your reputation.”
Lillian glanced at me and said, “Perhaps we should discuss this-”
“Irene has all of Conn’s old papers now, so I’m sure she’ll come across it, if she hasn’t already. Jack kept the note for years, because it was the last thing Katy had given to him, even if it only hurt him to see it. I finally told him to give it to Conn, that Conn could keep it in the collection of things the two of them gathered while they were trying to investigate all that happened on that night.”
“You don’t know that Conn kept it!” Lillian said. “Please-”
“Oh, he kept it. He mentioned it to me when Eric and Ian were facing charges in ’seventy-eight. If he had it then, he kept it.”
Helen turned to me. “The note said, ‘Is it true Mitch Yeager is my father? You’re the only one who will tell me the truth.’” She stared hard at Lillian as she said this last sentence.
“Katy thought Mitch Yeager was her father?” I asked, stunned.
“Damn it, Helen! What have you done to me!”
“All about you, isn’t it, Lily? Well, I’m tired of it.”
“But…Helen,” I asked, “are you saying that Mitch Yeager thinks Max is his grandson?”
“Yes. At least, there’s a real possibility that he does.”
“Is it true?” I asked Lillian. “Was Mitch Yeager Katy’s father?”
“No. I’ve told him that again and again.”
“But he has reason to believe he could be?”
“I don’t think I should answer that.”
“Cut the crap. You tell her or I will,” Helen said.
“You horrid old bitch!” Lillian said.
I thought back to O’Connor’s diaries. “Katy was twenty-one in January of 1958, so she was born in January of 1937, and would have been conceived in April or early May of 1936. Possibly a little later, but prematurely born infants weren’t as likely to survive then, so it’s more likely she was conceived in April or May. Mitch Yeager was on trial around then, but out on bail for most of April.”
“Go on,” Helen said, which drew another plea from Lillian. Helen shrugged and said, “Tell her yourself, then.”
“I…I was a stupid young girl,” Lillian said bitterly. “Mitch and I had been having an off-and-on affair for some time. I had been rather sheltered, and I rebelled. I found there was something exciting about him.”
“You dated Jack Corrigan in April of that year, too,” I said. “I’ve seen that in O’Connor’s diaries.”
“Diaries! He was a child!”
Helen smiled. “Jack told him to keep them, Lillian. Conn also wrote little stories about everything he had seen and heard.”
“Everything?” Lillian said weakly.
“Jack showed a few of them to me when he first started giving him ‘assignments’-they were uncanny. Jack used to say that Conn was born holding a pen, and I believe it’s true.”
Lillian frowned, then admitted, “Yes, I dated Jack. Mostly to make Mitch and Harold jealous, I suppose.”
I remembered O’Connor’s observations and wondered if that was true. But I didn’t say that-couldn’t say that in front of Helen. I was already wondering if I should have kept my big mouth shut about Jack’s previous affairs.
I glanced at her and found that far from looking injured over Lillian’s talk of dating Jack, she looked knowing-almost smug. Maybe she didn’t care about Jack’s past, since she was the only one he married. Of course, Jack and Helen had been friends long before they married, so she must have known that “Handsome Jack” hadn’t lived a celibate life.
Lillian said, “You may not be aware of it, but Winston Wrigley-the first one, I mean-was my godfather. He was furious when he found out that I was dating Jack. One of his own reporters! Then later, Mitch told him that if the paper printed so much as one more negative story about him, he’d tell the world a few stories about me.”