When I reached the doorway, I heard the sound of women laughing.
“Those are just other daughters and sisters,” Mrs. Fennel said. “They all know you’re coming. Everyone’s waiting for you.”
She put her arm around my shoulders and closed the door behind me.
“You know, this is a wonderful second chance for you, Lorelei. I can tell you, few of us would have enjoyed such an opportunity. Your father really loves you.”
The house was old, but nothing looked worn or as untidy as the grounds did. There was no dust, no cobwebs. Everything looked as it might have looked the day the house was built and furnished. The floors glittered like immaculate hospital floors, and the wood of the walls and ceilings looked polished. I followed her through the short entryway and hallway and then heard the sound of babies crying.
“Feeding time,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised. This really is an orphanage of sorts,” she added. “Come. Look.”
We stopped at a doorway on the left. Inside was a nursery with ten infants in bassinets. Two women wearing nurses’ uniforms were tending to them.
“Go on, look at them, Lorelei. Each one is perfect and will be quite beautiful.”
The nurses turned and smiled at me.
The one on the left reached into a bassinet and took out an infant who wasn’t crying. She looked asleep. The nurse held her so I could see her face. She did look perfect.
“Wouldn’t you love to have a daughter like that?” Mrs. Fennel asked.
I didn’t answer.
The laughter in the other room grew louder.
“Oh, come on,” Mrs. Fennel said. “They’re so anxious to see you.”
I followed her across the hallway and into a large living room. Five young women sat on settees. I didn’t recognize them from the pictures I had seen in Daddy’s closet, but when the fifth turned to me, I gasped.
It was Brianna.
“Hi, Lorelei. You have grown beautifully. She’s perfect, isn’t she, Mrs. Fennel?”
“Perfect.”
Ava, who was now sitting in a large cushioned chair on the right, continued to glare angrily at me. The four other women were as beautiful as Brianna, two with rich, radiant black hair and two with auburn. All of them, including Brianna, were dressed in black gowns very similar to the one Daddy had brought for me from Paris. Ava laughed at the expression of surprise that I was sure I wore.
“Dresses look familiar?” she asked. Her expression soured again. “I didn’t wear mine tonight. Thanks to you.”
“Ava,” Mrs. Fennel said with a tone of warning. She smiled again and nodded at one of the women with black hair. “This is Sophie, Ava’s mother. Don’t they look more like sisters?”
“I thought… she died in childbirth,” I said.
“You weren’t ready for this sort of truth when we told you that story, Lorelei,” Mrs. Fennel said.
How much had been fabricated? I wondered.
“Here you are,” I heard, and turned to see the woman in the picture with my name on it, the woman I had thought was my mother, enter the room. She didn’t look any older than she had looked in the picture and certainly no older than any of the other women. She carried a dress in her arms that looked just like the dresses the others were wearing. “Look at how she’s grown, Mrs. Fennel.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Fennel said.
“It’s not fair,” Ava said.
I looked at her, confused. What wasn’t fair?
“Stop it, Ava. Your father has decided,” Mrs. Fennel said.
Ava pouted.