Excerpt of Included!

DOWN RIVERshe set it on the silver tray. “I’m not a zealot, Mr. Chase. I do not condemn mydaughter because she worships the trees and the dirt and God knows what else.I would be heartless, indeed, to cast out my only child for reasons as intangibleas mere differences of faith.”“Then, may I ask why?”“You may not!”I leaned back, laced my fingers. “With all due respect, Mrs. Yates, youbroached the subject.”Her smile was tight. “You’re right, of course. The mind wanders and themouth, it seems, is more than willing to follow.”She trailed off, looked suddenly uncertain. I leaned forward so that ourfaces were close. “Ma’am, what is it that you want to discuss with me?”“You found her?”“I did.”She lowered her gaze and I saw powder blue lines in the paper-thin eyelids.Her lips pursed, thin and bloodless under lipstick the color of a December sunset.“It’s been twenty years,” she said. “Two decades since last I saw or spoke tomy daughter.” She lifted the sherry and drank, then lay a light hand on mywrist. Her eyes widened as her voice cracked. “How is she?”I leaned away from the desperation in her face, the quiet, weak hunger. Shewas an old woman, alone, and after two decades, the wall of anger had finallycrumbled. She missed her daughter. I understood. And so I told her what Icould. She sat perfectly still and absorbed everything I said. I sugarcoated nothing.By the end, her eyes were down. A large diamond spun loosely on her fingeras she twisted the ring.“I was in my mid-thirties when I had her. She was ...unplanned.” Shelooked up. “She was more child than woman the last time I saw her. Half herlife ago.”I was confused. “How old is your daughter?” I asked.“Forty-one.”“I assumed that she was much older.”Mrs. Yates frowned. “It’s the hair,” she said, gesturing at her own hair, thinand white and lacquered. “An unfortunate family trait. Mine turned white inmy early twenties. Sarah was even younger.”279