Six weeks after Mary Gunther’s telephone call, and six weeks before Katherine was scheduled to go to San Francisco to be with her friend, Leo suffered a massive cerebral hemmorhage and dropped dead among the high stacks of oak barrels in one of the winery’s huge aging cellars. Although Katherine was stunned and grief-stricken, and although she had to start learning to run the family business, she did not back out of her promise to Mary Gunther. In April, when Mary sent a message that the baby had arrived, Katherine went off to San Francisco. She was gone more than two weeks, and when she returned, she had a tiny baby, Bruno Gunther, Mary’s alarmingly small and fragile child.
Katherine expected to have Bruno for a year, at which time Mary would be firmly on her feet and ready to assume complete responsibility for the tyke. But after six months, word came that Mary had more trouble, much worse this time–a virulent form of cancer. Mary was dying. She had only a few weeks to live, a month at most. Katherine took the baby to San Francisco, so that the mother could spend what little time she had left in the company of her child. During Mary’s last days, she made all of the necessary legal arrangements for Katherine to be granted permanent custody of the baby. Mary’s own parents were dead; she had no other close relatives with whom Bruno could live. If Katherine had not taken him in, he would have wound up in an orphanage or in the care of foster parents who might or might not have been good to him. Mary died, and Katherine paid for the funeral, then returned to St. Helena with Bruno.
She raised the boy as if he were her own, acting not just like a guardian but like a concerned and loving mother. She could have afforded nursemaids and other household help, but she didn’t hire them; she refused to let anyone else tend to the child. Leo had not employed domestic help, and Katherine had her father’s spirit of independence. She got along well on her own, and when Bruno was four years old, she returned to San Francisco, to the judge who had awarded her custody at Mary’s request, and she formally adopted Bruno, giving him the Frye family name.
Hoping to get a clue from Joshua’s story, alert for any inconsistencies or absurdities, Hilary and Tony had been leaning forward, arms on the dining room table, while they listened. Now they leaned back in their chairs and picked up their wine glasses.
Joshua said, “There are still people in St. Helena who remember Katherine Frye primarily as the saintly woman who took in a poor foundling and gave him love and more than a little wealth, too.”
“So there wasn’t a twin,” Tony said.
“Definitely not,” Joshua said.
Hilary sighed. “Which means we’re back at square one.”
“There are a couple of things in that story that bother me,” Tony said.
Joshua raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”
“Well, even these days, with our more liberal attitudes, we still make it damned hard for a single woman to adopt a child,” Tony said. “And in 1940, it must have been very nearly impossible.”
“I think I can explain that,” Joshua said. “If memory serves me well, Katherine once told me that she and Mary had anticipated the court’s reluctance to sanction the arrangement. So they told the judge what they felt was just a little white lie. They said that Katherine was Mary’s cousin and her closest living relative. In those days, if a close relative wanted to take the child in, the court almost automatically approved.”
“And the judge just accepted their claim of a blood relationship without checking into it?” Tony asked.
“You have to remember that, in 1940, judges had a lot less interest in involving themselves in family matters than they seem to have now. It was a time when Americans viewed government’s role as a relatively minor one. Generally, it was a saner time than ours.”
To Tony, Hilary said, “You said there were a couple of things that bothered you. What’s the other one?”