Tyler said quickly, “I suggest we adjourn to the library.” He turned to Clark. “Would you send the young lady in there, please?”
“Yes, sir.”
She stood in the doorway, looking at each of them, obviously ill at ease. “I…I probably shouldn’t have come,” she said.
“You’re damn right!” Woody said. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Julia Stanford.” She was almost stammering in her nervousness.
“No. I mean who are you really?”
She started to say something, then shook her head. “I…My mother was Rosemary Nelson. Harry Stanford was my father.”
The group looked at one another.
“Do you have any proof of that?” Tyler asked.
She swallowed. “I don’t think I have any real proof.”
“Of course you don’t,” Woody snapped. “How do you have the nerve to—”
Kendall interrupted. “This is rather a shock to all of us, as you can imagine. If what you’re saying is true, then you’re…you’re our half sister.”
Julia nodded. “You’re Kendall.” She turned to Tyler. “You’re Tyler.” She turned to Woody. “And you’re Woodrow. They call you Woody.”
“As People magazine could have told you,” Woody said sarcastically.
Tyler spoke up. “I’m sure you can understand our position, Miss…er…Without some positive proof, there’s no way we could possibly accept…”
“I understand.” She looked around nervously. “I don’t know why I came here.”
“Oh, I think you do,” Woody said. “It’s called money.”
“I’m not interested in the money,” she said indignantly. “The truth is that I…I came here hoping to meet my family.”
Kendall was studying her. “Where is your mother?”
“She passed away. When I read that our father died…”
“You decided to look us up,” Woody said mockingly.
Tyler spoke. “You say you have no legal proof of who you are.”
“Legal? I…I suppose not. I didn’t even think about that. But there are things I couldn’t possibly know about unless I had heard them from my mother.”
“For example?” Marc said.
She stopped to think. “I remember my mother used to talk about a greenhouse in back. She loved plants and flowers, and she would spend hours there…”
Woody spoke up. “Photographs of that greenhouse were in a lot of magazines.”
“What else did your mother tell you?” Tyler asked.
“Oh, there were so many things! She loved to talk about all of you and the good times you used to have.” She thought for a moment. “There was the day she took you on the swan boats when you were very young. One of you almost fell overboard. I don’t remember which one.”
Woody and Kendall looked over at Tyler.
“I was the one,” he said.
“She took you shopping at Filene’s. One of you got lost, and everyone was in a panic.”
Kendall said slowly, “I got lost that day.”
“Yes? What else?” Tyler asked.
“She took you to the Union Oyster House and you tasted your first oyster and got sick.”
“I remember that.”
They stared at each other, silent.
She looked at Woody. “You and Mother went to the Charlestown Navy Yard to see the USS Constitution, and you wouldn’t leave. She had to drag you away.” She turned to Kendall. “And in the Public Garden one day, you picked some flowers and were almost arrested.”
Kendall swallowed. “That’s right.”
They were all listening to her intently now, fascinated.
“One day, Mother took all of you to the natural history museum, and you were terrified of the mastadon and sea serpent skeletons.”
Kendall said slowly, “None of us slept that night.”
Julia turned to Woody. “One Christmas, she took you skating. You fell down and broke a tooth. When you were seven years old, you fell out of a tree and had to have your leg stitched up. You had a scar.”
Woody said reluctantly, “I still do.”
She turned to the others. “One of you was bitten by a dog. I forgot which one. My mother rushed you to the emergency room at Massachusetts General.”
Tyler nodded. “I had to have shots against rabies.”
Her words were coming out in a torrent now. “Woody, when you were eight years old, you ran away. You were going to Hollywood to become an actor. Our father was furious with you. He made you go to your room without dinner. Mother sneaked some food up to your room.”