To her mother, she was life. She was springtime. She was something new and unpredictable in an endless cycle of seasons that had started to look much the same year after year. To her father, she was a necessary secret. Naturally. It would hardly be a smart thing for one of the state’s most influential politicians to claim paternity of another illegitimate child and destabilize both a hard-bought political career and an already antagonistic marriage.
Cora Lee’s existence —despite the vague details surrounding her conception— was hardly considered a scandal by the inhabitants of Olympia township, at least not to the standards set by its more colorful inhabitants. At the time of her birth there was a war raging on the European continent, and all attention was intently focused on the not-so-discreet exchange of letters between Marcus King, the mayor’s only son sent overseas, and Valentine Abernathy, the town socialite newly-engaged to another man. The discreet delivery of a quiet girl to a single mother hardly raised eyebrows or caused ripples of gossip in comparison.
In Quotation Marks 