Free Say You Love Me by Patricia Hagan Page B

along the blanket's hem.
    Violet felt the telltale lump. From time to time in the past, as the thread had dry-rotted she had restitched the seam, but now she did not have the strength to break it. "Help me," she said.
    Why on earth, Jacie wondered in alarm, was she wanting to rip open the hem of a blanket? Maybe she really was losing her mind. She started to take it from her, "This can wait till tomorrow. I'm going to get you some soup."
    Violet held firm to the blanket. "No." Her eyes narrowed with determination. "Break the threads, Jacie. You have to see what's inside."
    Jacie was bewildered. Leaning closer, she saw the bulge she had not noticed before.
    "I couldn't tell you while Judd was alive." Violet felt herself becoming dizzier by the minute as the shadows were coming closer, reaching out for her. She prayed for enough time to tell her story. Only then could she die in peace, when her soul was at last cleansed of the sin of deceit that had tormented her for eighteen years.
    "Judd would have been angry with me for not telling him the truth. He would have left me, and I couldn't let that happen, because I was foolish enough to think I could make him love me. I never stopped trying, and it wasn't till he died that I realized what a fool I'd been. He could never love anybody except her."
    "My aunt Iris." Jacie wondered what her father's infatuation with her aunt had to do with the blanket and whatever secret her mother had kept from him.
    "Help me rip the seam open, and you will understand."
    Jacie decided to humor her. With a quick snap, she broke the threads and was surprised to see a locket and a small leather pouch inside.
    "I never touched any of the money," Violet said, indicating the pouch. "I don't even know how much is there. I felt it belonged to you."
    Jacie focused on the locket. Opening it, she gasped at her own likeness. "It's a daguerreotype, and it looks like me."
    Just then, Sudie started through the door, curious to see if everything was all right. Before anyone noticed her she saw Miss Jacie holding up what looked like a tiny painting of a woman and heard Miss Violet say something that made her freeze in her tracks.
    "That is your mother."
    Backing away, Sudie went to stand outside the door. She knew it was wrong to eavesdrop but could not resist after what she had just overheard.
    Jacie looked from the locket to Violet in astonishment. "No. It can't be."
    "It is. She was your mother, not your aunt. And her husband Luke was not your uncle, he was your father."
    Jacie shook her head. She could not grasp what was being said. Her mother had to be out of her head, yet, as Jacie continued to regard her own image, something told her Violet spoke the truth.
    "You and I were spared when the Indians killed them and your brothers, so I told Judd you were his child. He never suspected anything, because he didn't know our own baby had been born dead a few days earlier."
    "Why are you telling me this now? Why did you lie to me, and to Daddy, all these years?"
    "Because it was like fate meant for me to, so I wouldn't lose him. Iris had given you to me to nurse that morning, because I still had milk for my own baby, and it was making me sick. I had to get rid of it. So I took you and walked away from the wagons and off into the bushes, and that's where I was when they attacked, and..." Harsh rasping sounds came from deep within her chest, making it difficult for her to talk. When she finally caught her breath, she begged, "You've got to understand that I only did it because I loved Judd so much, and I thought Iris was dead, so what good would it have done anybody for me to tell the truth? If Judd had left me then, how could I have taken care of you?"
    Jacie's gaze had been fixed on the picture of her mother. Slowly, something terrible dawned on her. She looked up at Violet. "You said you thought she was dead. Didn't you know for sure?"
    "I thought I did...then. You see, I fainted, Jacie. It was all too much. The last