Free Secrets She Kept by Cathy Gohlke Page B

me to transfer the amount of five hundred American dollars to your account for her travel expenses.
    I must convey to you that Herr Sommer is elderly and infirm. Unable to provide the hospitality he would like, Herr Sommer requires his physician, Dr. Gunther Peterson, or myself to act in his stead.
    Sincerely,
    Heinrich Eberhardt
    Attorney at Law
    “Hannah?” Ward Beecham asked. “Are you all right?”
    All right? “This says I have a grandfather . . . a grandfather I never knew existed. And he’s German . . . Wolfgang Sommer . . . That’s not even the name on Mama’s marriage certificate.”
    “Apparently. Yes, that’s right, on both counts.”
    “Everything my mother told me about her past was a lie.”
    “We don’t know anything about the man, other than he appears to have money sufficient to buy you a ticket.”
    “If he was a bad man, why would she have left me this address to reach him? She never told me about him, but she opened this door for me to walk through   —after her death. I don’t understand.”
    “Maybe she regretted not telling you, not letting you know about him.” He hesitated. “But she might have been ashamed of him too. She might have had good reason not to use his name or respond to his letter. We don’t know.”
    “Aunt Lavinia said people did crazy things during the war. She suspects Mama took advantage of Daddy, that she got him to marry her so she could get away from something bad she’d done.”
    “I find that hard to believe.”
    “Do you? She let me believe my whole life that Daddy   —Joe Sterling   —was my father, and that she had no family at all. That she was Austrian, for Pete’s sake.”
    “Maybe your father   —Joe   —wanted it that way. Maybe she thought she needed to protect you from her family or from the American community. We weren’t known for treating Germans   —even German Americans   —very well, you know.”
    “But after Daddy died, she could have   —”
    “Honored his memory.”
    “She didn’t love him! She wouldn’t have put a headstone over his grave if Aunt Lavinia hadn’t shamed her into it. He wasn’t a good husband, any more than she was a good wife. I know that, but he was good to me   —as good as he knew how.” Why are you taking up for them? Why am I taking up for him? “She lied to me, and she didn’t exactly make it easy for me to figure out all we have.” That truth kept a tornado spinning in my head, and hurt like a rock crushing my chest. It’s like she’s playing games with me from the other side of the grave!
    “I’m just saying that your mother must have had her reasons. I don’t know what those were, but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and caution you to be careful with this man who claims to be your grandfather. Just because he invites you to Germany doesn’t mean you should go.” He shook his head. “We don’t know anything about him or this lawyer. I need to think how best to proceed.”
    But this was the first clue I’d found to my mother’s past and possibly to my own. If I had a grandfather in Germany, might I also have a father there? Could the other envelopes from Germany, the one Ward was unable to trace, lead me to him? Understanding my past might give me a clue to my future. I wasn’t about to let Ward Beecham talk me out of it. “There’s one way to find out, isn’t there? Book my plane ticket.”
    * * *
    Aunt Lavinia fought me every step of the way, begged me not to go, and cried as the taxicab pulled from her drive. Brokenhearted and trying not be angry with her, I set my jaw, refusing to look back. I wasn’t leaving forever, just for now, for me. I promised to write.
    The plane   —my first plane ride ever   —bumped all the way to NewYork. Courage waned as my breakfast came very close to revisiting my teeth. But I couldn’t go home or back to Aunt Lavinia, not until I found some answers.
    For two hours I wandered JFK’s eclectic airport