Jack Digby, by Rachel Lane

Jack Digby's mother never gave him anything; not even a memory. All he knew about her was what he'd been told by Miss Harriet Livingston, the maiden aunt who had brought him up; and that was little enough. About his father he knew even less, for his aunt always avoided talking about him at all.
    He had been born in France, shortly before the outbreak of the war. He and the two sisters had been evacuated in great haste just ahead of the German invasion in 1940, but his father had never been seen again, and was entered as "lost; presumed killed". In the confusion Jack's birth certificate had been lost, which had caused him endless bureaucratic delays throughout his life. Then, before he was too young to understand it, his mother and Miss Livingston had had some kind of quarrel, as a result of which his mother had decamped forthwith to Canada and had never again made contact. Miss Livingston was most reluctant to speak about her at all.
   Although his aunt had always performed her duty towards him, Jack soon sensed that she didn't really like him at all: indeed, she rather resented him. It was a relief to both of them when he was packed off to boarding school, from which he duly progressed to university. Even in the holidays he came home no more than was necessary, preferring to stay with friends, or later to go travelling. It was on one of his foreign expeditions that he learnt that his aunt had died in an accident. The bulk of her estate went to charity. She left him some money, but no final message.
   While he was helping to clear out her house, he found an old photograph, tucked away and doubtless forgotten, beneath some yellowing newspaper in a cupboard. It showed two young ladies and a man, and was labelled on the back, in faded pencil, "Mary, Harri and Don". This set him thinking. "Harri" was clearly his aunt Harriet, probably in her twenties at the time; so was the other woman, Mary, who resembled her closely, his mother? In which case, was Don his father? He pondered the matter for a while; but then other concerns took over and filled his time: his work, and a family of his own. It was only many years later, when he had more leisure, that he rediscovered the photograph and sought to investigate his past.
   He researched in archives and genealogical websites. For his mother, he learned little that he did not know already, so he turned to his putative father, assuming that the man in the photograph was indeed Don Digby. Eventually he was able to meet a very aged lady who was Don's sister.
   She instantly identified the photo as being her brother. "So you're Don's son,are you?" she said. "He sent me a letter, you know, and told me he'd had a son; but then he was lost in the war. Oh well. You do look a bit like him. Yes, they often went on holiday together: him and Harriet and poor Mary".
   "Why do you say, 'Poor Mary'?"
   "Well,he wasn't at all kind to her. I shouldn't really say this, him being my brother; but it was all a very long time ago. Mary couldn't have any children, you know. He told me he'd realized he'd married the wrong sister. Me, I didn't like Harriet much"
    "But ...... Mary's my mother!"
    "Oh, no! Harriet was your mother. And of course, Mary was furious about it, poor girl. Didn't Harriet ever tell you? Now isn't just typical of her!"