Chapter 1
She threw the steak onto the floor because I brought it out seven minutes late. I apologized twice, but what she said next made the entire restaurant go silent.
I was working the dinner shift at a packed steakhouse in Boston.
The kitchen was short-staffed, and every table was waiting longer than usual.
When I finally carried the steak to Table 12, the woman sitting there looked at her watch.
“Forty minutes.”
“I’m very sorry, ma’am,” I said. “The manager already removed your appetizer from the bill.”
She stared at the plate.
Then she pushed it away.
“This is unacceptable.”
“I understand. I can have another one made if—”
Before I finished, she grabbed the plate and knocked it onto the floor.
The steak landed beside my shoes.
Everyone nearby stopped talking.
“Do you people hire anyone these days?” she snapped.
I swallowed and bent down to pick up the broken plate.
“I’m sorry for the delay.”
She laughed.
“Stop saying sorry. Maybe learn how to do your job.”
Her teenage daughter whispered, “Mom, please stop.”
The woman ignored her.
“I’m paying hundreds of dollars for dinner, and I get treated like this?”
I felt my face burning as customers watched.
Then she pulled a twenty-dollar bill from her purse and dropped it beside the steak.
“There. That’s probably more than you make in an hour.”
I froze.
Her daughter looked horrified.
“Mom!”
Then an older man at the next table suddenly stood up.
He had been quietly watching the entire thing.
“Pick up that money,” he told her.
She turned toward him.
“Excuse me?”
He walked closer and looked directly at me.
Then he said her full name.
“Rebecca Collins, you still haven’t learned how to treat people?”
The woman’s face went white.
I looked between them.
“Do you know her?”
The man slowly took out his wallet and placed an old family photograph on the table.
Then he looked at Rebecca and said, “You should tell this young woman who I really am before I do.”
Rebecca stared at him like she had seen a ghost.
The color disappeared from her face.
Her daughter looked from her mother to the older man.
“Mom?”
Rebecca’s lips moved, but nothing came out.
I was still kneeling beside the broken plate.
My manager, Kevin, had finally reached the table.
“Is everything okay here?”
“No,” Rebecca said immediately. “This man is bothering me.”
The older man gave a sad laugh.
“Bothering you?”
He pointed at the twenty-dollar bill on the floor.
“You humiliated a server in front of an entire restaurant, and I’m bothering you?”
Rebecca stood.
Her chair scraped against the floor.
“You have no right to speak to me.”
“I’m your father.”
The restaurant became silent again.
My hand stopped over a piece of broken ceramic.
Rebecca’s daughter whispered, “Grandpa?”
Rebecca spun toward her.
“Emma, don’t.”
But Emma was staring at the man.
“You told me he was dead.”
That sentence hit harder than the plate hitting the floor.
The older man closed his eyes.
For a second, he looked like someone had punched him.
Then he looked at Rebecca.
“You told your daughter I was dead?”
Rebecca grabbed her purse.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
The word came from Emma.
Rebecca stared at her.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
Emma was trembling.
“I want to know why you told me my grandfather was dead.”
“Not here.”
“You made this scene here.”
Several customers looked away.
Others did not.
Rebecca’s expression hardened.
“Emma. Get your coat.”
The older man picked up the photograph.
Before putting it away, he looked at me again.
His eyes dropped to the silver necklace around my neck.
It was a small oval locket.
The only thing I had left from my mother.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
I instinctively touched it.
“My mother.”
Rebecca turned toward me so quickly that her purse nearly slipped from her hand.
“What did you say?”
I stood slowly.
“My mother gave it to me.”
The older man came closer.
His voice was quiet now.
“What was your mother’s name?”
I felt uncomfortable.
This had already become strange enough.
“Sarah.”
He stopped breathing for a second.
Rebecca whispered, “No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“What was her last name?”
“Carter.”
Rebecca stared at the locket.
The older man shook his head.
“Not the name she was born with.”
I felt cold.
I had heard that sentence once before.
From my mother.
I had been thirteen.
We had been sitting in our tiny kitchen when I asked why there were no photographs of grandparents in our apartment.
She told me she had left her old life behind.
When I asked what that meant, she only said, “Carter wasn’t always my name.”
She never explained.
Three years later, she died from an aneurysm.
And I never got another chance to ask.
I looked at the older man.
“How do you know that?”
He pointed to my locket.
“May I?”
I hesitated.
Then I opened it myself.
Inside was a tiny photograph of my mother when she was young.
Beside her was another girl.
I had always assumed it was a school friend.
Rebecca made a sound behind me.
Not quite a gasp.
Not quite a sob.
Emma stepped closer.
“Mom?”
I looked at Rebecca.
Then back at the photograph.
The girl beside my mother had the same eyes.
The same jaw.
Even the same small mole near her left eyebrow.
It was Rebecca.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
The older man’s eyes filled with tears.
“Your mother’s name was Sarah Collins.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“She was my daughter.”
I stepped backward.
My heel hit the steak on the floor.
Kevin reached for my arm, but I pulled away.
Rebecca suddenly spoke.
“This is ridiculous.”
Her voice was sharp, but it was shaking.
“She could be anyone.”
The old man looked at her.
“Look at her.”
“I am looking at her.”
“Then stop lying.”
Rebecca’s face tightened.
He turned to me.
“My name is Thomas Collins.”
I knew that name.
Everyone in Boston’s restaurant business knew that name.
Thomas Collins had built Collins Hospitality from one neighborhood steakhouse into one of the largest privately owned restaurant groups in New England.
Our restaurant had been purchased by Collins Hospitality six months earlier.
I stared at Kevin.
He looked just as shocked as I felt.
“You own this restaurant,” I whispered.
Thomas nodded.
“Among others.”
Rebecca gave a bitter laugh.
“Oh, perfect. Here we go.”
I ignored her.
“If Sarah was your daughter…”
Thomas looked at me.
“Then you’re my granddaughter.”
My knees almost gave out.
Emma covered her mouth.
Thomas continued.
“And Rebecca…”
He looked at the woman who had just thrown a steak at my feet.
“…is your aunt.”
Nobody spoke.
I looked at Rebecca.
She looked at me.
The woman who had humiliated me five minutes earlier was apparently my mother’s sister.
My aunt.
Rebecca shook her head.
“No. We are not doing this.”
Thomas’s expression changed.
“Why? Because she deserves answers?”
“Because you don’t know who she is.”
“I know Sarah’s face when I see it.”
“That proves nothing.”
Thomas pointed to the locket.
“You remember that locket.”
Rebecca went silent.
Emma looked at her mother.
“What locket?”
Thomas answered.
“I gave one to each of my daughters after their mother died.”
Rebecca looked away.
My fingers tightened around the necklace.
I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.
I had spent twelve years believing my mother had no family.
No parents.
No siblings.
No one.
Now her father was standing in front of me.
Her sister was standing ten feet away.
And they were acting like my mother’s name was a loaded gun.
“What happened?” I asked.
Rebecca grabbed her coat.
“Nothing happened.”
Thomas looked at her.
“Don’t.”
She snapped.
“You don’t get to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Rewrite history because Sarah is dead and can’t defend herself.”
That made me look at Rebecca.
“Defend herself from what?”
Rebecca’s eyes met mine.
For the first time, her anger disappeared.
What replaced it looked like fear.
Thomas noticed too.
He stepped closer to her.
“Rebecca.”
She ignored him.
I asked again.
“What happened to my mother?”
Rebecca swallowed.
Then she said something I would think about for the rest of my life.
“Your mother didn’t leave this family.”
Thomas went still.
May you like
Rebecca looked directly at me.
“She was thrown out.”
