Maryanne did not begin with betrayal.<\/p>\n
She began with lumber.<\/p>\n
Thomas had been nineteen when he started delivering building supplies for an uncle in Duluth. Maryanne\u2019s father worked as a carpenter and regularly ordered from the same hardware business.<\/p>\n
According to Maryanne, Thomas invented reasons to make deliveries himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was unbearable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel almost smiled. \u201cThat sounds like Dad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne looked at him, surprised, and a small warmth moved through her face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought he was arrogant.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe probably was,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
She laughed once.<\/p>\n
The sound was gentle and brief.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thought persistence was a personality.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sounded so exactly like the man I married that an unexpected ache moved through me.<\/p>\n
They became friends first.<\/p>\n
Then they fell in love.<\/p>\n
At twenty-two, Thomas and Maryanne bought the little bungalow from the photograph.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe blue was his idea,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
I took the old picture from my purse and placed it on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
Maryanne\u2019s hand rose to her mouth.<\/p>\n
For several seconds she did not touch it.<\/p>\n
Then one finger moved over Thomas\u2019s young face, the porch railing, and the blanket wrapped around baby Emily.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took this with a camera timer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes filled.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought this photograph was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel leaned forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou lived there together?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
I asked the question neither of us could avoid.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you engaged?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne nodded.<\/p>\n
Thomas had proposed soon after she became pregnant.<\/p>\n
His parents reacted badly.<\/p>\n
The Bennetts were not enormously wealthy, but Thomas\u2019s father had built a respectable construction business and expected his son to become part of it.<\/p>\n
Maryanne\u2019s family had very little.<\/p>\n
Her father worked with his hands.<\/p>\n
Her mother cleaned motel rooms.<\/p>\n
Thomas\u2019s parents decided Maryanne wanted security rather than their son.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey thought I saw money,\u201d she said. \u201cThe irony was that by then there wasn\u2019t nearly as much money as they imagined everyone wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thomas refused to end the relationship.<\/p>\n
He intended to marry her.<\/p>\n
Then his father suffered a devastating stroke.<\/p>\n
The family business was already carrying debt.<\/p>\n
Without Thomas\u2019s father managing it, projects collapsed. Creditors appeared. Employees went unpaid. Thomas found himself trying to keep both his parents and the company from falling apart.<\/p>\n
The wedding was postponed.<\/p>\n
Then postponed again.<\/p>\n
I thought of the Thomas I knew.<\/p>\n
He had never been able to walk away from someone who needed him.<\/p>\n
Sometimes that quality had irritated me.<\/p>\n
He once spent an entire vacation helping a stranded stranger repair an engine in a campground.<\/p>\n
At the time I called it compulsive responsibility.<\/p>\n
Now I understood it may have been older than our marriage.<\/p>\n
Maryanne rose and walked to a bookshelf.<\/p>\n
She returned with another bundle of letters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are his.\u201d<\/p>\n
The paper was worn where it had been folded and unfolded repeatedly.<\/p>\n
She handed me one.<\/p>\n
Thomas had written that his father threatened to cut him off if he married Maryanne immediately.<\/p>\n
Thomas claimed he did not care about inheritance.<\/p>\n
His fear was the blue house.<\/p>\n
Creditors were circling the family business, and Thomas believed marrying while everything was tangled financially could put Maryanne\u2019s home at risk.<\/p>\n
He begged for six months.<\/p>\n
Six months to save the business.<\/p>\n
Six months to stabilize his parents.<\/p>\n
Six months before they married.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe meant it,\u201d Maryanne said.<\/p>\n
I looked up.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why didn\u2019t he come?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes closed.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I left first.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pregnancy had become complicated.<\/p>\n
Doctors wanted Maryanne closer to specialists.<\/p>\n
Thomas could not leave Duluth.<\/p>\n
His father required constant care after the stroke. His mother was barely functioning. The company was failing.<\/p>\n
Maryanne decided that remaining would force Thomas to choose between her and people who might not survive without him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was twenty-two,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought leaving was noble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel stared at the floor.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did Dad think?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat I stopped loving him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t tell him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried.\u201d<\/p>\n
She gave a bitter little smile.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople forget how difficult disappearing could be before mobile phones and email. I left a letter. Then my family moved. Thomas wrote to the old address. Letters were forwarded late or not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he look for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he eventually told me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne had gone to Minneapolis first, then farther south after Emily was born.<\/p>\n
She used her maiden name again.<\/p>\n
Her parents moved twice.<\/p>\n
Thomas searched outdated addresses.<\/p>\n
Friends lost touch.<\/p>\n
Months became years.<\/p>\n
She had believed Thomas would eventually recover from her departure.<\/p>\n
He believed she had chosen to vanish.<\/p>\n
Neither understood how completely the other had lost the trail.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about the house?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cI left it to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe deed stayed in his name?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne looked at the photograph.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t bear to sell it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Years later, after she finally heard from Thomas again, she asked him to promise that Emily would always have some connection to the first home they had imagined raising her in.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever sell it while Emily is alive,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
Maryanne nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe promised.\u201d<\/p>\n
I thought of the deed inside my purse.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her face folded.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel stood and walked toward the photographs on the wall.<\/p>\n
One showed Emily wearing a graduation gown.<\/p>\n
Another showed her beside a man in a dark suit.<\/p>\n
Another showed a teenage boy carrying what looked like rolled architectural plans.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad found you eventually,\u201d Daniel said.<\/p>\n
Maryanne wiped beneath one eye.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen years after I left.\u201d<\/p>\n
My stomach tightened.<\/p>\n
Ten years.<\/p>\n
Thomas and I had already met.<\/p>\n
We had married.<\/p>\n
Daniel had been born.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my cousins ran into someone from his family. Thomas wrote.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did he say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne met my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe told me about you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I held her gaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Daniel?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something cold moved through me.<\/p>\n
My husband had been exchanging letters with the woman he once intended to marry while I was raising our baby.<\/p>\n
Maryanne seemed to read my face.<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth, we never resumed what we had.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow am I supposed to know that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou aren\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her answer surprised me.<\/p>\n
She did not plead.<\/p>\n
She did not defend herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou only know what I tell you and what the letters show.\u201d<\/p>\n
I appreciated that more than any reassurance she could have offered.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you still in love with him?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne considered the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at her.<\/p>\n
I stayed still.<\/p>\n
She continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut love is not the same as deciding someone belongs to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I did not speak.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Thomas found me, he was your husband. You had a child. I had already made my decision years earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could have asked him to leave me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he offer?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
That answer mattered.<\/p>\n
Perhaps more than I wanted it to.<\/p>\n
Maryanne told us they established rules almost immediately.<\/p>\n
No private visits.<\/p>\n
No telephone calls that might become emotional habits.<\/p>\n
No letters about romantic feelings.<\/p>\n
No interference in either household.<\/p>\n
Thomas wanted to contribute financially to Emily.<\/p>\n
Maryanne initially refused.<\/p>\n
Eventually they agreed that money connected to the blue house could be used for Emily\u2019s education and important expenses.<\/p>\n
The property had been rented after Maryanne left.<\/p>\n
Thomas kept it.<\/p>\n
Every March and October he sent part of the rental income.<\/p>\n
I thought of the twenty-seven receipts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose weren\u2019t gifts to you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOr payments because of an affair.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were Emily\u2019s share.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne nodded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas considered half of everything the house earned hers.\u201d<\/p>\n
For weeks, the money orders had looked like proof of betrayal.<\/p>\n
Now they looked like something more complicated.<\/p>\n
Responsibility.<\/p>\n
Guilt.<\/p>\n
Perhaps love.<\/p>\n
Perhaps all three.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t Emily know?\u201d<\/p>\n
The question changed Maryanne\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told myself I was protecting her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing the child a man couldn\u2019t publicly claim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel turned.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he wanted her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou knew it then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne flinched.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her voice became almost inaudible.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I was afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n
No one spoke.<\/p>\n
Maryanne explained that by the time Thomas found her again, Emily had grown up believing another version of her history.<\/p>\n
Maryanne had told her only that her biological father had been unable to remain in their lives.<\/p>\n
Not dead.<\/p>\n
Not cruel.<\/p>\n
Simply absent.<\/p>\n
Then every passing year made the truth harder to introduce.<\/p>\n
At ten, Emily was too young.<\/p>\n
At sixteen, too angry.<\/p>\n
At eighteen, leaving for college.<\/p>\n
At twenty-five, newly married.<\/p>\n
Then Maryanne began telling herself Thomas should be the one to reveal it.<\/p>\n
Thomas told himself he had no right to appear without Maryanne\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n
Two frightened people kept waiting for the perfect moment until decades disappeared.<\/p>\n
Daniel stared at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo my sister grew up thinking Dad abandoned her while Dad spent his life secretly helping her?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne nodded through tears.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd neither of you fixed that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
His anger was quiet.<\/p>\n
That made it more like Thomas\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn\u2019t Dad tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have known her.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have had a sister my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI know.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne began crying openly.<\/p>\n
Daniel looked away.<\/p>\n
I understood both of them.<\/p>\n
The secret had cost him something neither Thomas nor Maryanne could return.<\/p>\n
A childhood relationship.<\/p>\n
Birthdays.<\/p>\n
Arguments.<\/p>\n
Christmases.<\/p>\n
The ordinary years siblings take for granted.<\/p>\n
Then the front door opened.<\/p>\n
Every person in the room froze.<\/p>\n
A woman called, \u201cMom?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne went pale.<\/p>\n
Emily entered carrying two grocery bags.<\/p>\n
She was in her early forties, with dark curls pulled loosely behind her head and the same laughing eyes I had studied in photographs.<\/p>\n
She stopped when she saw us.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne stood too quickly.<\/p>\n
One of the tea cups rattled against its saucer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily smiled politely.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry. I didn\u2019t know you had company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes moved to me.<\/p>\n
Then Daniel.<\/p>\n
She stared at him a little longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou must be the cousins from Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniel looked at Maryanne.<\/p>\n
I looked at her too.<\/p>\n
Maryanne had apparently invented enough of an explanation to get us through the door, but she had not found the courage to tell Emily why we had actually driven twelve hours.<\/p>\n
Emily set the groceries down.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne\u2019s mouth opened.<\/p>\n
Nothing came out.<\/p>\n
Emily\u2019s smile vanished.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom, what\u2019s wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne started crying.<\/p>\n
I had watched women cry beside hospital beds, graves, wedding aisles, and newborn children.<\/p>\n
This was different.<\/p>\n
These tears had been delayed for forty-two years.<\/p>\n
Emily stepped toward her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne took her daughter\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s something I should have told you a very long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily looked from her mother to Daniel.<\/p>\n
Then to me.<\/p>\n
Fear entered her expression.<\/p>\n
We moved back to the living room.<\/p>\n
No one suggested tea this time.<\/p>\n
For nearly three hours Maryanne told the story.<\/p>\n
She did not excuse herself.<\/p>\n
She explained Thomas.<\/p>\n
The engagement.<\/p>\n
The pregnancy.<\/p>\n
The blue house.<\/p>\n
His father\u2019s stroke.<\/p>\n
Her departure.<\/p>\n
The years of separation.<\/p>\n
Thomas finding her after he had married me.<\/p>\n
The rules.<\/p>\n
The money.<\/p>\n
Emily listened without interrupting.<\/p>\n
Then Maryanne finally said it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThomas Bennett was your father.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily stared at the photograph on the table.<\/p>\n
The room became so quiet that I heard the refrigerator cycle on in the kitchen.<\/p>\n
She picked up the old picture.<\/p>\n
Her thumb touched the younger Thomas\u2019s face.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Maryanne whispered.<\/p>\n
Emily swallowed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe knew I existed.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was not quite a question.<\/p>\n
Maryanne nodded.<\/p>\n
Emily looked at her mother.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he knew where I was?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLater, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her face changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why did he never come?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne began to answer.<\/p>\n
Emily raised one hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. I want someone else to tell me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes found mine.<\/p>\n
Thomas\u2019s widow.<\/p>\n
The woman he had chosen after losing her mother.<\/p>\n
Perhaps I was the last person she should have trusted.<\/p>\n
But she asked me anyway.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he know me?\u201d<\/p>\n
I reached for Thomas\u2019s briefcase.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily\u2019s mouth trembled.<\/p>\n
I placed the letters on the table.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept the things your mother sent.\u201d<\/p>\n
She opened the first envelope.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
School photographs.<\/p>\n
A report card.<\/p>\n
A clipping from a spelling competition.<\/p>\n
A graduation announcement.<\/p>\n
A wedding invitation Thomas had never attended.<\/p>\n
Evidence of a father watching a daughter\u2019s life from a distance he had helped create.<\/p>\n
Emily pressed her fingers against her lips.<\/p>\n
Then she found another photograph.<\/p>\n
Daniel at six years old, grinning beside Thomas and holding a fishing pole too large for him.<\/p>\n
Emily turned it over.<\/p>\n
Thomas had written a brief note identifying Daniel as her younger brother and wishing circumstances had allowed the two children to know each other.<\/p>\n
Emily\u2019s breathing broke.<\/p>\n
She began to cry without making a sound.<\/p>\n
Daniel stood.<\/p>\n
For several seconds he seemed uncertain what to do.<\/p>\n
Then he moved beside her.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looked up.<\/p>\n
He gave a helpless little shrug.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably the strangest question I\u2019ll ever ask anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
A laugh escaped her through tears.<\/p>\n
Daniel opened his arms slightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I hug my sister?\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily stared at him.<\/p>\n
Then she stood.<\/p>\n
When they embraced, I had to look away.<\/p>\n
Not because the moment was too sentimental.<\/p>\n
Because it was painful.<\/p>\n
They fit together with the awkwardness of strangers and the recognition of family.<\/p>\n
Two people who should have known each other for forty years were meeting in the wreckage of decisions made before either had a choice.<\/p>\n
Maryanne covered her mouth.<\/p>\n
I thought about Thomas.<\/p>\n
Whatever explanation his letters offered, he had allowed this loss to happen too.<\/p>\n
The responsibility was not Maryanne\u2019s alone.<\/p>\n
The next morning, Maryanne asked whether we wanted to see the house.<\/p>\n
We drove through Duluth beneath tall maples beginning to turn at the edges.<\/p>\n
She stopped on a quiet residential street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bungalow stood halfway down the block.<\/p>\n
Its paint had faded from vivid blue to a weathered blue-gray.<\/p>\n
A child\u2019s bicycle lay near the porch.<\/p>\n
Chalk suns and crooked flowers covered the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
A young family rented it now.<\/p>\n
I stared at the place where Thomas, Maryanne, and baby Emily had once posed for a camera.<\/p>\n
Maryanne smiled sadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople offered to buy it many times.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe refused?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time.\u201d<\/p>\n
I took the deed from my purse.<\/p>\n
A second document had been folded inside it, one I had barely examined at the bank.<\/p>\n
Thomas had transferred the property into a family trust several months before entering hospice.<\/p>\n
Daniel leaned over my shoulder.<\/p>\n
Emily stood beside him.<\/p>\n
Ownership had been divided equally.<\/p>\n
Half to Daniel Bennett.<\/p>\n
Half to Emily Cole.<\/p>\n
Neither could sell without the agreement of the other.<\/p>\n
Thomas had waited until death was close, then legally joined the two children he had never managed to bring together in life.<\/p>\n
Daniel laughed once through his nose.<\/p>\n
Emily wiped her cheek.<\/p>\n
Maryanne stared at the house.<\/p>\n
I should have felt peace.<\/p>\n
Instead another question rose.<\/p>\n
Thomas had arranged the trust.<\/p>\n
He had prepared the safe-deposit box.<\/p>\n
He had written instructions for me.<\/p>\n
He had clearly known time was running short.<\/p>\n
Which meant he had been preparing to reveal everything.<\/p>\n
I looked at Maryanne.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid Thomas tell you he was dying?\u201d<\/p>\n
Her face changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily turned toward her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou didn\u2019t know?\u201d<\/p>\n
Maryanne shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew nothing until Ruth\u2019s letter arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something about that troubled me.<\/p>\n
Thomas had sent his final money order less than a month before death.<\/p>\n
He had changed the property trust only months earlier.<\/p>\n
He had hidden a letter for me.<\/p>\n
But he had never warned Maryanne.<\/p>\n
Daniel seemed to reach the same conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad was getting everything ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted Mom to find you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think so.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen why didn\u2019t he contact you himself?\u201d<\/p>\n
No one answered.<\/p>\n
The wind stirred maple leaves across the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
I pictured Thomas during his final weeks.<\/p>\n
Weak.<\/p>\n
Restless.<\/p>\n
Touching his wedding ring.<\/p>\n
Preparing documents.<\/p>\n
Hiding keys.<\/p>\n
Asking a nurse whether Maryanne knew he had kept the promise.<\/p>\n
He had been trying to finish something.<\/p>\n
And somewhere between preparing the truth and speaking it, he had run out of time.<\/p>\n
I looked again at the blue house.<\/p>\n
For most of a month, I had believed its greatest secret was that Thomas kept it.<\/p>\n
Standing beside his daughter, his son, and the woman he once intended to marry, I began to understand that the more important question was why he had suddenly prepared all of us to find one another just before he died.<\/p>\n
Thomas had not simply left behind evidence of his past.<\/p>\n
He had left a plan.<\/p>\n
And I was no longer convinced we had uncovered all of it.<\/p>\n
Maryanne did not begin with betrayal. She began with lumber. Thomas had been nineteen when he started delivering building supplies for an uncle in Duluth. Maryanne\u2019s father worked as a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2553,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2537\/revisions\/2553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}