Harvestland

FOURTEEN

"We did this to protect you," her father said.

Charlee's parents, her foster parents, stood in her room as she lay atop the covers on her bed staring blankly at the ceiling. They were trying to explain years of secrets and lies.

"You are our daughter," Mother said. "That has always been true. You're not someone else's. We loved you as we would a real daughter. Because you are our real daughter."

Charlee finally turned to look at them. She hadn't been crying, she just didn't feel like talking.

But she decided to humor them since it looked like they weren't going to shut up. Maybe it would get them out of her room faster. She wanted to go see Noah. She had told him what happened over the phone and said she'd come over later, that she needed to get out for awhile.

"But you're not my biological parents," Charlee said.

Mother took a breath. "No."

"I never knew about the Sleepy Hollow murders until a couple years ago," Charlee said. "Everyone else in town did. I always thought it was weird that I was never told. Now I know why."

"Charlee," Mother said.

"So I'm adopted. Just like Kevin?"

Mother looked at her husband and then nodded.

Charlee said, "You didn't think I could have handled knowing that part? That I was adopted?"

"It was decided upon when we got you," her father said, "that it would be better just to call you our own. To prevent you from wanting to look for your birth parents one day and...figuring out the truth."

"That wasn't your decision to make."

"It wasn't just ours," he said.

Mother shot her husband a glare.

"Whose else was it?" Charlee said.

Her father said, "It doesn't matter."

Mother cut in. "It was our decision. We were your new parents. We made certain decisions for your own good."

"Hmm."

Mother said, "Charlee, I...I can't physically have children. I never told you or Kevin. That's why your father and I adopted."

Charlee stared at her, saw a rare shred of humanity work its way across her face.

Eventually Charlee said, "The man who put this secret adoption together, David Collins III, my...real grandfather—that's who helped you decide not to tell me, right? How did he choose you two?"

Mother looked down. "We had been looking at the time to adopt, and well..." She sighed.

Charlee's father said, "Let me just tell her."

"Fine."

"David Collins agreed to pay all the adoption fees for us. Even give us a lot of extra support—money—to help raise you, to put you through college. And to ensure our silence as well. To both you and anyone else."

"Jesus," Charlee said.

"Charlee!" Mother said. "I know you're upset. But talk to God about your frustrations, don't say His name in vain. Now we did what we did. And now you know. I could have said no to those detectives, I could have shown them the door, and believe me that was what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe now you deserved to know. With all that was going on, with what happened to Alison, I thought maybe it was time. I didn't have the courage to tell you myself, but maybe I always knew a day like this would come, when somehow you would find out. So I let it happen."